A new week! And I heard at last from Mobineko after many angry emails. They are telling me that the problem was that the automated shipping dates were causing them trouble (?). That the records still take around 14 weeks to press (that is 3 months and a half max) and that they had transitioned over from MPO (I don’t know what MPO means, do you?) and tried to be as open and transparent as possible and stated in the order confirmation page that orders placed at that time will take up to 14-16 weeks. FYI if we would have kept the orders at MPO there would have been 7 months minimum turn time, hence the decision to move quickly. Anyways they say that all the print parts and plates for the Salt Lake Alley 7″ are finished and they are just waiting for the sleeves. So supposedly they should be shipped out shortly. Crossing fingers.
So new finds? Yes, a few!
Ciudad Gragea: the Trujillo, Peru, band has been featured on the blog in the past with their brand of fun pop reminiscent of 80s Spanish pop. Now the band seems to be working on new songs, perhaps a new release, and they have shared a video for their song “La Noche”.
Youthcomics: I still haven’t been able to get the Sailyard Records releases. Perhaps it is my fault for trusting that I was going to trade them with the Japanese label as was agreed. But well, maybe I should just buy them on Discogs or somewhere else. In any case I will have to add one more to the list! The superb Youthcomics is releasing “April Transit”, a 6 song EP, on June 20th. The Osaka band has now shared one of the songs from this record, one called “Weekend”, which is terrific. Also I really like the artwork for this release, a bit Cloudberry-style if I may say so!
The Orchids: the Glasgow legends will be back on August 7th with two brand new songs on a lovely 7″. “I Never Learn” and “Echos (Have Hope)” will appear on the 7″ series that WIAWYA has been putting out this year. The same that included 7″s by the Catenary Wires or Birdie. At the moment of writing this post only the B side, “Echos (Have Hope)”, is available to stream and I can only say that it beautiful as usual as everything The Orchids do. The A side, I assume, would be as good if not better, as it was chosen to be an A side, right? Looking forward to it!
The Amber List: I saw that Mick and Scrub from the 80s band Big Red Bus have a new song under the name The Amber List called “Guiding Star”. It is the first time I’m hearing their music and it is actually not their only song available on SoundCloud. There are 3 more, “Back on Board”, “Pink and Orange Sky” and “Well the Wind” which seem to be 4 months old. It is always good tom hear what the classic bands from the indiepop days are doing now! Good stuff! And a Big Red Bus interview would be good too, right? Especially after they released that retrospective on Firestation.
Blues Lawyer: one thing I have due is ordering more records from Flagstaff’s Emotional Response Records. If only I had tons of money! But hopefully next month it can happen. There are so many records I need, and I just discovered one more that I would like in my collection, Blues Lawyers’ “Guess Work”. This ten song album is out now vinyl and from listening to it on Bandcamp I can see why the label compares them to the TVPs or The Vaselines. The band hails from Oakland, California, and is formed by Rob, Elyse, Nic and Alejandra. It says that the band started when Rob and Elyse bonded over The Clean and The Bats. Well, anything that has to do with The Bats in my book is a good thing.
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A purée (or mash) is cooked food, usually vegetables or legumes, that has been ground, pressed, blended or sieved to the consistency of a creamy paste or liquid.[1] Purées of specific foods are often known by specific names, e.g., applesauce or hummus. The term is of French origin, where it meant in Old French (13th century) purified or refined.
Yes, that’s what the Spanish word Puré means in English. Not much mystery in there. I don’t know much about this Spanish band that released only one 7″ back in 1999 on Elefant Records. I don’t even own the record. Wish I had. Spanish postage prices were never friendly. Back in the day I used to complain a lot about that. Now that the US has worst prices than those of Spain, I know how annoying it is for those selling records. And for those buying too! It is a big headache!
Anyhow, their “Tanto Peor” 7″ was supposed to introduce a great band. A band that I believe Elefant had high hopes according to the small press note that appears on the Bandcamp were the label has uploaded the 4 songs by the band. It says: Another Spanish debut. Every song is a surprise: they sometimes sing in French, weird guitar bridges, toy-like jazz instrumentals… they will become huge.
Huge, they didn’t become. But they left these 4 songs, “Gérôme”, “Nana”, “B Explosion” and “Tant Pis”. Two on each side of the record. The vinyl record came out on October of 1999 and had the catalog number ER-213. It is an interesting band. They sing two songs in French, one in Spanish and there’s one instrumental. Why? I must say that the opening song, “Gérôme”, which is sung in French, is by far my favourite.
They did have another song released, but it happened 5 years later on a rarities compilation released by Elefant called “Momentos Perdidos” (ER-1115). On this compilation of unreleased tracks, B-sides and other rarities, the band appears with the song “La Vaca” which means the cow. Where does this song come from? From an earlier demo? Or perhaps a demo recorded after the 7″? It is not clear.
What else there is about this band to know? It seems to be very little, but I won’t give up and will continue my search. My first stop is a 2012 blog post on the blog Fantail Musica. It mentions that the band was formed in the town of Villaviciosa. That is around Madrid. Villaviciosa de Odón is a municipality in the western zone of the Community of Madrid in Spain. The town is located 15 km west of Madrid’s city center, in the western zone of the metro area. The Spanish Air Force Museum and the Universidad Europea de Madrid are located within the municipality. Villaviciosa’s quiet lifestyle and its proximity to Madrid propitiated rapid and extensive development during the late 1990s and early 2000s. Because of its proximity to the Universidad Europea de Madrid, it has become a university town, with well-developed residential area and amenities for students. The town contains the Castle of Villaviciosa de Odón.
It also mentions the first names of the band members, Irene, Begoña, Ana, Javi and Carlos. If only the last names were written down… perhaps it would be easier to track them down. I believe Irene was the vocalist as on the Elefant biography it mentions she is singing on “Tant Pis”. It is a good deduction I believe. So what did the other members play?
It seems there is a compilation called “Candy Box” that featured only Elefant bands that was made for the Japanese market. It was released in 2005 and it includes the song “Gérôme” by Puré. I can’t seem to find it on Discogs though.
I think on this streaming service called Deezer the band members are properly credited. The thing is I need to pay to access this website. What a stupid thing. Hate it. I can only read thanks to the metadata on Google that they were Irene Trascasa Muñoz de la Peña, Begoña Nuñez Biorrun Boluda González, Javier Herce Uralde, Carlos Carrión Martin Torres Hernández and Ana María Gómez López Morata Alvarez .
So now I have something to go on. And I find that Irene Tascasa was living in Lisbon and recording with a band called Pakita Pouco. They had a 2011 self-titled EP and you can actually listen to it on Bandcamp. There is a Javier Herce who is a writer, photographer and singer. Winner of the Premio Odisea in 2007 for his book “Desde Aquí Hasta tu Ventana”. Wonder if he is the same Javier as the Javier in Puré. Sadly the other members have very common names so it is hard to actually have any luck in searching them. There is a Carlos Carrión that lives in Madrid and works for wholesale for example, but as it is nothing to do with music it is hard to even suspect that it might be him. Ana María Gómez López, well there are many, but there is an artist, but then she was born in Minneapolis. Sounds farfetched, right?
About the band in particular I can’t find much more. Would be nice to know if they had been involved in any other bands or find out about any other recordings by them. I love their song “Gérôme” and I wonder, if Elefant was supportive of them, saying they were going to be huge, what happened to them? Why with a big indie label supporting them, they didn’t live to expectations? Does anyone remember them?
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Listen
Puré – Gérôme
