Special Feature: Track-by-Track Through Grados. Minutos. Segundos. Pt. 3
Completely understandable if perhaps the thought of undertaking an exploration of the Spanish heavy underground across 12 seven-inch split releases, limited in number, shipping in four separate batches — the third went out last month — and all tied together through mosaic artwork and a unity of purpose seems overwhelming. It’s a lot, and in terms of there being 250 copies made once and that’s it, not a lot of it. But the thing you need to understand about Spinda Records‘ Grados. Minutos. Segundos. compilation is that, with exclusive material from 24 Spanish bands, it’s not just speaking to the current moment. It’s presenting a document for future history.
Think of the box like a time capsule celebrating the vitality of Spain’s creative community. Some of these bands are new to me too, and to pretend otherwise would be missing the point. Coordinated by Spinda big-boss Berto Cáceres, the set speaks to a history in punk rock and DIY, but fleshes it out beautifully in presentation and class, just as the music too has grown up. I’m not in the business of telling you how to spend your money — I’m not in the business of anything, as it happens — but the truth is this is something special, that doesn’t come along every day, year or decade, let alone minutes or seconds.
There’s still one more shipment to go out in March and I’ll hope to wrap this track-by-track series then (past installments are here and here). Thanks again to Berto Cáceres, here’s the track-by-track for part three and the stream of the whole thing:
Purchase here: https://spindarecords.com/grados-minutos-segundos
After the First 16 Stops, This Trip Around the Indie Music Scene Called ‘Grados. Minutos. Segundos.’ Continues Now with 6 New Bands: Atavismo, Mía Turbia, Santo Rostro, Cemënteri, The Soulbreaker Company and Domo.
‘Grados. Minutos. Segundos.’ is a no-return trip around the four cardinal points of the deepest underground music scenes in Spain. Thanks to a boxset full of previously unreleased tracks of 24 indie Spanish bands you’ll have the chance to understand how’s the sound of this new generation of independent musicians. You don’t want to be told about it, you want to be part of it.
Grados. Minutos. Segundos. Track-by-Track Pt. 3
ATAVISMO – “Psicopatías del 2021”
“This track is a new vision of an old creation from the past. New language, new performers, same minds at stage. “Psicopatías del 2021″ is bringing our insanity down to the deepest abyss, to be eaten by our own demons and again like a new status of reality. Space-rock and psychedelia dancing together around a crazy sublet beat, while the strings machines are killing the common sense of the harmonies. Enjoy!”
MÍA TURBIA – “Centro de gravedad”
“For this compilation we wanted to write something a bit closer to space rock and all these things inspired by Hawkwind, plenty of synths and tape delays. The track itself came from a previous demo, but twisted it, added some vocals and we got it – we kept things on the dirty side. The song talks about about a lonely traveller who goes down into the depths of the ocean. The world that surrounds us is sometimes so wrong that to be isolated is the only solution.”
SANTO ROSTRO – “Annual”
“We’ve been playing live this song since 2019 and it’s purely Sabbath – we love it! We set up everything in a warehouse close to our rehearsal place and we recorded it live. Then on the studio we added another guitar and some vocal overdubs and we got it. Pretty straightforward, and it sounds live and fresh, if that makes any sense nowadays.”
CEMËNTERI – “El verano más corto”
“Trying to do something different, we went from a noisy intro at the beginning to the quietest music we’ve ever written. Singing spoken-word in this part is also unusual for us. However the end of the song is quite punk and noisy and we personally like this contrast. In terms of lyrics, this song is Covid-19 related. “El verano más corto” (the shortest Summer) goes about how fast the Summer of the year 2020 went and how disappointing it was at the end. After being locked at home for 8 full weeks, we thought Summer could bring great news, but the fact was that it was still crap, with everybody scared and out of their minds – everything was so depressing.”
CEMËNTERI – “El ritmo frenético”
“In here we also tried to do something different and definitely we managed to add something fresh to our style without losing our personality. African influences and a more funky-dance sound get together with punk rock. Drums follow afro-beat stuff whilst guitar goes closer to Tuareg-rock before merging into punk rock half way through the track…
Lyrically the song is an invitation to dance, to go into a room completely packed and surrender to the power of music, the vibration of the bodies and the physicality of music. We finished the song after Covid-19 first lockdown and by that time dancing was completely forbidden and everybody must be seated in bars and live shows. The message was poignant – we were writing about something that we took for granted for decades and we lost it quickly.”
THE SOULBREAKER COMPANY – “Kill the Devil (with his dick)”
“The song tries to create a serious atmosphere since it talks about that kind of men, referring to them as “the Devil” that use sexual workers (In the lyrics a fiction story where that “devil” is killed with his own dick). In terms of melody and harmony, we tried to create a continuous rock beat with unexpected tempo changes which are not very usual in our compositions. This, together with the claps and some extra voices, makes this song a rarity within our discography.”
DOMO – “Aldorassa”
“Aldorassa is one of the highest peaks in the Scandinavian Mountains. When composing our music, we mostly get our inspiration from nature, from its most ancestral and wild side. We truly believe there is a connection between melodies, riffs, rhythms and the vastness of the rocky sceneries shaped by the erosion and passage of time. When we return to dust, music, like mountains, will be everlasting.
