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The Obelisk Radio Add of the Week: Picaporters, Elefantes

The story goes that Buenos Aires-based desert rockers Picaporters recorded their apparently-self-released, apparently-debut full-length, Elefantes, live over the course of two days in March 2013, and I’ll admit that I don’t know much more about them than that. Their sound is heavy, full of swing and ultimately geared toward a brilliantly effective laid back atmosphere, but as to their origins, how the trio of Juan Pablo Herrera (bass), Lucas Barrué (guitar) and Juan Pablo Vázquez (drums) got together (they seem to have lost a member or two along the way), if in fact Elefantes is their debut album, or even if it’s been or will be pressed physically, it’s as yet a mystery. All that leaves, then, is the music.

And to that, I’ll say I broke one of my own rules when it comes to Elefantes. An email came in from the band with little more than, “Hey, listen to our record here’s the Bandcamp link,” and where nine times out of 10, that note gets little more effort in a response than that which was put into the initial contact — i.e., next to none — I checked out Picaporters on a whim and was immediately consumed by the slow unfurling of 11:40 album opener “Hijo de Gaia,” which captures an in-the-studio vibe that still manages to be so relaxed that I couldn’t help but go with it. Some stuff just grabs you. Moments of burst early on do little justice to the flow the band creates, and though they’ll soon enough get up to some grunge-type riffing in the first half of “Idea RAM,” throughout “Hijo de Gaia” and “Emergiendo en Ondas,” a heavy psych groove pervades and sets a calming, engaging tone for the rest of Elefantes to come. “Idea RAM” winds up blending its early-’90s rush with effective jamming explorations, with sets up cool ’70s feel of “Lluvia de Metal,” the beginning of what seems to be a trilogy with “Sol de Metal” and “Eclipse de Metal” to follow. The bass emerges here with standout fills amid airier guitar lines and bouts of reinterpreted Sabbath-meets-Graveyard groove, vocals staying collected throughout en route to an echoing blues solo. The “de Metal” portion might be some of Elefantes‘ most effective material, but really it’s just one portion of the record’s diverse and universally switched-on course.

“Lluvia de Metal” finishes out with a touch of boogie built around quick rhythmic turns, and “Sol de Metal” picks up from silence to spend its first two minutes or so in humble desert guitar exploration before a heavier rock riff breaks down the door and pushes forth with significant thrust. A change in the vocal approach finds Picaporters tapping into echo that reminds of earliest Jesu — could be coincidence, could be on purpose — even as they hit on a relatively straightforward progression. That contrast makes the Elefantes centerpiece all the more intriguing, but as it becomes increasingly clear throughout, the real highlight moments are to be found in the instrumental interplay between the band members and the overall mood of the songs themselves — not dark, not pretentious, not trying too hard to fit with genre. The solo on “Sol de Metal” is almost too active to pair with the longer-held vocals that precede it, but it’s a minor gripe and the band soon breaks to bass and drums to reset the jam for what seems like a more fitting, improvised build before they fade back into the soft guitar line that opened the song for an unexpected show of symmetry. Though it’s less than half the length of its predecessor at 3:10, “Eclipse de Metal” ends the sequence fading up to find Picaporters in medias res on another warm instrumental excursion, the guitar wandering around lead lines while the bass and drums hold together a straightforward, classically heavy groove that seems to be in direct conversation with that of “Lluvia de Metal.” Seems only fitting.

Gradually, they fade “Eclipse de Metal” back to the silence from whence it came — another show of symmetry that gives a “slice of life” touch to the song — and shift course to the sweetly Hendrixian “Alternative Girl.” Also instrumental, it feels like the beginning process of what might’ve come out on the other end as a complete, structured song, but here winds up being an unabashedly pretty stretch that of course finds contrast to its brief two-minute pulse with the brash heavy rock return of “Amantes Instantes.” With Elefantes most insistent heavy groove, the penultimate track stretches over eight minutes and meets early verse/chorus tradeoffs with a solo-led jam that, among other things, also accounts for the best basswork on the album. A sudden break after three minutes in is a surprise, but the bass leads the rebuilding process and just past minute four, they surge to life again, dynamic and with multiple layers of vocals where everything else seemed to be singularly delivered. Crashes and stops add a sense of chaos, and they break again, with soft vocals over quietly plucked guitars. This time, when they return with just about two minutes left, it’s with a slower, more low-end-driven part, pushed along, it would seem in its own miniature ebbs and flows.

How else to end such a thing but with a raging thrash breakdown in the last 30 seconds? “Amantes Instantes” is one of those songs that has more twists to it than some other bands’ whole albums, and it was clearly intended to be the culmination of Elefantes since what follows is a cover of Led Zeppelin‘s “Rock and Roll” that presents the Led Zeppelin IV single as a handclap-inclusive blues stomper, complete with jangly shuffle, soulful solo, drum breaks and repurposed “ooh yeah”s that groove the record out with a lighthearted sense that’s not quite a return to the unassuming start that “Hijo de Gaia” provided, but is nowhere near as severe as it would’ve been had they closed with “Amantes Instantes.” The whole album is available for free download through Picaporters‘ Bandcamp, and though they’re not exactly forthcoming on their backstory, sometimes the music does all the speaking that really needs to be done. However long they’ve been around, whether it’s two years or 10, Elefantes impresses with its cohesiveness, natural vibe and shifts in tone.

You can hear it now as part of the regular playist for The Obelisk Radio and stream it on the player below:

Picaporters, Elefantes (2013)

Picaporters on Thee Facebooks

Picaporters website

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One Response to “The Obelisk Radio Add of the Week: Picaporters, Elefantes

  1. GodJah says:

    Damn fuckin’ awesome album, dude. Thanks!!!!

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