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Full Album Premiere: The Silver Linings, Pink Fish

Posted in audiObelisk on October 9th, 2023 by JJ Koczan

The Silver Linings (Photo by Nacho Gabrielli)

This Wednesday, Oct. 11, The Silver Linings will release their debut album, Pink Fish (review here), through Spinda Records. Classic space rock abounds on the Andalusian five-piece’s seven-songer, and the simple answer is that’s why I’m streaming it. Yeah, I did the earlier premiere linked above, but some records should be heard in their entirety, and with the particular shimmering pastoralia that seems to be a regional specialty for a number of acts — the PR wire lists some of them below; Híbrido, Plastic Woods, Santo Rostro, etc. — the band conjures a malleable balance of styles that spans generations of lysergic and progressive influences. And then you get to the fuzz. Why am I streaming this record? Friggin’ listen to it and find out.

I had never been to the Iberian Peninsula at all until this past August — which given my age feels like neglect — and I hope to go back at some point, but while I was in Portugal for this year’s SonicBlast Fest, I met Berto Cáceres, who heads Spinda Records based in Andalucía, and in a longer, sit-down, face-and-voice-to-name conversation, he told me about how in the early ’70s in Spain, that area, which is the gateway from Europe to Africa and vice THE SILVER LININGS - Pink Fish - Album Coverversa, was how Spain got both its records and its weed while living under dictatorship (it’s kind of incredible how much of 20th century Spanish politics was defined by Franco), and so became a place of openness and art and creativity even when living under state oppression. Not quite a rebellion, maybe, but a little one. A good historical narrative, if nothing else.

And surely, the legacy of that progressive creativity is what we’re hearing in “Cosmic Excursions” or the tambourine-shaking and wailing guitar solo plus keys of “Heart Full of Gold,” but if The Silver Linings are showing themselves as part of the lineage described above, then inherent to that is a sense of looking beyond the confines of one’s own time and place. Past and future intertwine in a liquefied aural presence, the sound sending notes and melodies into an open expanse in “In the Fleeting Hand of Time” as it builds on the otherworldly propositions of “A Pleasant Trip into the Unknown,” begun with a sample of then-US President Ronald Reagan talking about aliens uniting the planet — one of a very select few things about which he was correct — before the band take off on a jaunt of trippy boogie that will land them in the quirk of “Pink Fish” before “Patient M” pulls back to more solidified ground, the guitar practically begging early on for the saxophone that joins soon enough.

One could go on — perpetually, it seems; dude, shut up — about the nuances in The Silver Linings‘ approach, the twists that Pink Fish presents over the course of its 37 minutes, but, well, I already did that, and how many huge block paragraphs do you really need at the start of what I’m sure will be a busy week? Let’s wrap it up, hmm?

The Silver Linings aren’t a revolution in psych on their first record, and they aren’t trying to be. What they do is to encompass a broad range of influences from ’60s garage and ’70s and ’80s prog with Andalusian folk, heavy, and modern neo-psych elements. A heady brew, and a potent one if you’re willing to be swept along by the album, which for a debut is awfully easy to follow on its path. Again, you can hear for yourself. I say, give it a shot. Worst case scenario, you quit your job and decide to wander the earth as a mushroom-snarfing wizard muttering existentialisms to yourself for the rest of your days. Also that’s the best case scenario.

Either way, enjoy:

Preorder link: https://spindarecords.bandcamp.com/album/pink-fish

Formed in Malaga in 2021, The Silver Linings self-released their debut EP ‘TSL’ in May 2023. Just a few days later they signed with the indie label Spinda Records (Moura, Fin del Mundo, Moundrag, Maragda) and returned to the studio to record some additional songs. The result is ‘Pink Fish’, a first full-length that is now available on main streaming services and physical formats.

After telling us the story of the “Patient M” and taking us to the deep space with “Cosmic excursions” in September, Málaga-based quintet The Silver Linings have just released ‘Pink Fish’. This debut album will delight fans of genres such as psychedelia, acid rock, space rock or kraut; and immediately places them within the new wave of Andalusian psychedelia, along with bands like Híbrido, Lunavieja, Medicina, Plastic Woods, Santo Rostro, Mia Turbia, Se permiten submarinos, DMBK or Gu Vo.

In this debut album, The Silver Linings are highly influenced by 20th century sci-fi, Moorcock’s literature, Moebius’ illustrations, Tarkovsky’s cinema, Jodorovsky’s work and the poetry of the beat generation; in addition to natural landscapes of Andalusia such as El Torcal in Antequera, the Gorafe desert, the dunes of Bolonia and the Strait of Gibraltar.

Recorded, mixed and mastered at Hollers Analog Studio, and with an artwork by Antonio Ramírez (Viaje a 800, Atavismo, Medicina, Bourbon), ‘Pink Fish’ is now available as part of Spinda Records ‘The Trippy Series’ on the following formats:

▪ Digital
▪ 150x Compact Disc (digisleeve)
▪ 150x Black Vinyl (hand-numbered; includes digital download)
▪ 150x Clear Orange Vinyl (hand-numbered; includes digital download)

Upcoming live dates:
Nov 09 | Málaga (SP) @ Festival Moments 10 | + Rosy Finch
Nov 11 | Málaga (SP) @ La Caverna
Nov 25 | Sevilla (SP) @ Monkey Week | + Fin del Mundo, Travo and Maragda

The Silver Linings:
Javi – guitar/vocals
Cati – guitar
Jose – bass
Lolo – drums
Marta – sax

The Silver Linings on Facebook

The Silver Linings on Instagram

The Silver Linings on Bandcamp

Spinda Records on Facebook

Spinda Records on Instagram

Spinda Records on Bandcamp

Spinda Records website

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The Silver Linings Premiere “Patient M” Video; Debut Album Pink Fish Out Oct. 11

Posted in audiObelisk, Reviews on September 1st, 2023 by JJ Koczan

THE SILVER LININGS - Pink Fish - Album Cover

The Silver Linings will release their debut album, Pink Fish, Oct. 11 through Spinda Records. The Andalusian, Málaga-based five-piece were reportedly four until about a fortnight ahead of recording their May 2023 debut EP, TSL, and that nugget of information conveyed by the PR wire below is actually a fitting analog for the kind of music they make. Running seven songs and a thoroughly manageable 37 minutes — the first single is centerpiece “Patient M”; the video for it premieres below — it encompasses decades of psychedelic influence and is informed by the surrounding creativity in its regional underground such that it goes where it wants. With the Stones-tambourine-meet-mellow-lysergic-ooze-strum of opener “Cosmic Excursions,” which breaks in its second half to a shimmering guitar lead that would bring a smile to the face of Jose “Poti” Moreno, hand percussion backing the sun-coated jam before a sample of Ronald Reagan talking about aliens starts the surf-y garage rocker “A Pleasant Trip to the Unknown.”

Lead guitar, the solo that takes hold after about a minute into “A Pleasant Trip to the Unknown” particularly, is Beatlesian in how the guitar sings, so of course The Silver Linings use it as a preface to a heavy psych swirl-and-swing fuzz shuffle because why not. Coated in wah, the lead guitar returns, but it’s more about the build in progress toward the finish of the song than carrying a melody, which is fine. The early message is that The Silver Linings aren’t looking to do just one thing, and the The Silver Liningsrest of Pink Fish bears that out. The title-track follows and is immersive in its cymbal wash, effects and so on until the tambourine enters with a grounding effect gentler than just going right to drums, a declarative Colour Haze progression in the rhythm guitar and bass, and a suitable coinciding flow.

So what happens at the halfway point? Stop and go. “Pink Fish” treats the listener to a next-stage-deployment of the rocket launch that “A Pleasant Trip to the Unknown” began, a vague spoken sample leading to a ghostly verse, a kind of serene acid boogiegaze — it’s like it’s moving, but it thinks it’s cool if you just wanna relax; all good — and the aforementioned “Patient M” ends side A with a Hawkwindian answer to the outbound direction of Pink Fish thus far. It’s a big universe out there. Are we going? We’re going.

That sax, along with a classic clarity in the guitar tone — lead lines all over, bright like surf or space, but not playing toward vintageism in the recording — works to tie “Patient M” together and seems to give The Silver Linings permission to dwell in the parts more. There’s an intro, verse, chorus, bridge, solo, even a mini-jam at the end, but when you’re listening it’s less about the structure of the thing than the overarching affect that draws from so many different sides to become as impressively cohesive as it is. Plus, it swings, capping a movement across the four tracks of Pink Fish‘s first half, each of which took less than five minutes to add to the scope of the record.

Side B’s three component pieces, “Heart Full of Gold,” “In the Fleeting Hand of Time” and the closer “Lifeforce,” are all over that mark, with “Heart Full of Gold” the longest at 6:18 beginning with a wistful echo of harmonica soon joined by standalone guitar, not necessarily Western and not blues (which is fine, mind you), but hypnotic in an up-and-down course as it shifts into an open-spaced, kick-anchored stretchout that picks up some All Them Witches vibes as it unfolds. With the tambourine and the drawling vocal, that impression is stronger, but in its payoff, “Heart Full of Gold” returns to Andalusian psych-prog that much richer for the route it took to get there and by the time it’s done I’m ready to give up on trying to guess where The Silver Linings are going to head next, at least in an acid psych context. So much the better.

“In the Fleeting Hand of Time” doesn’t answer the ending of “Heart Full of Gold” with a blowout, but starts with the full band easing into a fluid, sax-inclusive jam across the first of its five-plus minutes, the guitar and sax smoothly making way for the verse shortly thereafter. The vocals are light in a way that answers the song prior, the bassline particularly sweet as the song transitions into a light push of boogie that builds to a crescendo and gets noisy again in the comedown as it might onstage, THE SILVER LININGS - Patient M - Single Coverthe guitar and sax not wanting to let go quite yet, drums up for it.

A bit of feedback that on many records would be ignored stands out at the end, emphasizing how much of Pink Fish‘s atmosphere has been focused on soothing. A quick stop lets the shimmering guitar, shaker, tambourine, and so on, begin “Lifeforce,” and the finale soon enough is dug into tom-led okay-now-you-need-to-get-up Iberian folk-informed funk psych, where it stays. The tension rests in the guitar and bass, which are purposefully sharp-cornered in starts and stops and twists, though the semi-spoken verse assures terrestrial presence.

They steer “Lifeforce” to the album’s somewhat understated, not-a-blowout conclusion, seeming to be satisfied as they look back at how far they’ve ranged and the spontaneity they’ve captured in their sound, turning at just the right moment to work against expectation toward expanse and set themselves up with a swath of avenues for potential forward growth. I wouldn’t be surprised if they took all of them.

Preorder links and the noted PR wire background follow the “Patient M” video below.

Please enjoy:

The Silver Linings, “Patient M” video premiere

Preorder: https://spindarecords.com

Bandcamp: https://spindarecords.bandcamp.com

Formed in Malaga (Spain) in 2021, The Silver Linings’ music can be understood as a return to the origins, to those years of early psychedelia, when UFOs were still travelling through deep space and tales of tin-can robots, with their typical mechanical movements, filled our imaginations.

Jose (bass), Cati (guitar) y Javi (vocal, guitar) began their psychedelic acid trip together with Chechu (drums), but only a few months later Lolo replaced him and the band started working on their first songs. Their influences range comes from 20th century Sci-fi, the literary work of Moorcock, the illustrations of Moebius, the cinema of Tarkovski, the works of Jodorowski and beat poetry, as well as Andalusian natural landscapes such as the Torcal rocks, Gorafe desert, Bolonia dunes and the Strait of Gibraltar.

Taking their musical style and the fact that they’re based in the south of Spain into account, they can be included in the New Wave Of Andalusian Psychedelia, together with bands such as Atavismo, Híbrido, Lunavieja, Medicina, Santo Rostro, Mía Turbia, Gu Vo or DMBK, although their sound -closer to acid-psych-space-kraut rock- makes us think of Causa Sui, Hawkwind or even Can.

In May 2023, two weeks before recording their debut EP ‘TSL’ at Hollers Analog Studio (Málaga), Marta joined the band on saxophone. Just a few days after the digital release, the band was signed up by the indie record label Spinda Records (Moura, Fin del Mundo, Moundrag…), going into the studio once again to record additional music to re-launch everything as their first full-length album ‘Pink Fish’ in October 2023.

‘Pink Fish’ track-list:
1. Cosmic excursions
2. A pleasant trip to the unknown
3. Pink fish
4. Patient M
5. Heart full of gold
6. In the fleeting hand of time
7. Lifeforce

Formats:
● Digital
● 150x 140g Black Vinyl
● 150x 140g Clear Orange Vinyl

The Silver Linings:
Javi – guitar/vocals
Cati – guitar
Jose – bass
Lolo – drums
Marta – sax

The Silver Linings on Facebook

The Silver Linings on Instagram

The Silver Linings on Bandcamp

Spinda Records on Facebook

Spinda Records on Instagram

Spinda Records on Bandcamp

Spinda Records website

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Abstracción Premiere “Asinergia” Video from Self-Titled Debut out May 29

Posted in Bootleg Theater on April 30th, 2020 by JJ Koczan

asinergia_abstraccion_promo

With their seven members spread throughout three different cities in Spain, flute-laden progressive psych rockers Abstracción seem to be out to prove that something doesn’t necessarily have to be still or staid to be peaceful. Their self-titled debut was originally set to issue on April 3 but has been pushed to May 29 owing to the inevitable manufacturing delays, and it’s only understandable that, however serene a song like “Asinergia” — the visualizer/video for which is premiering below — might come across, they’re getting somewhat restless. There’s only so much sitting-on-hands one can do while waiting for something to happen.

I don’t mind admitting “Asinergia” is my first exposure to Abstracción, who put the vocals of Catalina Requena at the forefront of their melodicism, carrying across a human presence amid what would feel like willfully nature-minded surroundings, accordingly organic in their production style. Casual swirls of guitar and keys, the abstraccion self-titledflute and backing percussion all add to the fluidity of the track as a whole, while Requena‘s voice brings a folkish element that calls to mind the early interplay between folk and prog stylistically, as, say, British folk grew more complex at the same time heavy rock was looking to express something more mature as well. Abstracción are in an in-between place when it comes to style, but they skillfully draw from one side or another as need be in “Asinergia,” and — in a fashion that has me very much wanting to hear the rest of their self-titled — they turn an otherwise unassuming four-and-a-half-minute track into a mood-altering journey that finds cohesion from what could just as easily be opposing elements.

Such unity of purpose is especially noteworthy given that Abstracción is their first offering, but crazier things have certainly happened than a band coming out of the gate knowing what they want to sound like. Still, “Asinergia”‘s effect on mood is no less striking than the colors of the Tumulus Design cover art for the record, once again calling to mind the natural world, the world beyond and maybe even the eyes that we as human beings use to see both of them inside and outside of ourselves. For a band who thus far eschew the tradition of promotional photography — there are a couple in-studio shots on their social medias, but nothing of the lot of them; what even is a band that doesn’t cross their arms in front of a brick wall, I ask you (sarcastically)? — they have no trouble putting an image in the mind’s eye.

Preorder info for Abstracción and more follows, courtesy of the PR wire.

Please enjoy:

Abstracción, “Asinergia” official video premiere

We continue to fight the elements that stand in the way to make the release of our debut a memorable event. And we’re getting closer to getting it!

Next week we will dive back into the abstract maelstrom to continue knowing its intricacies. This will be a raid that can be perceived through the sense of ear, and sight.

Official video of Asinergia, song belonging to the debut of Abstracción. Release Date: May 29, 2020.
Pre-order on Bandcamp: https://abstraccion.bandcamp.com

Music by Luis Monge, lyrics Catalina Requena and arrangement by Abstracción.
Recorded, produced and mixed by Pablo Bermejo at the studio 20.000 Leguas de Montilla (Córdoba).
Mastered by Ernesto Santana.

Video directed and designed by Tumulus Design: https://www.instagram.com/tumulusdesign

Abstracción are:
Catalina Requena: vocals
Luis Monge: electric guitar
José Gálvez: sitar, acoustic guitar and percussion
Pablo Bermejo: Hammond, Farfisa and Fender Rhodes
Pablo Abarca: concert flute
Rafa “Chico Jr.” Paredes: bass
Paco García: drums and percussion

Abstracción on Thee Facebooks

Abstracción on Instagram

Abstracción on Bandcamp

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