The story being told in music throughout the seven tracks of Diablo in Alpujarras‘ self-titled LP — part of the Psychedelic Source Records collective in Hungary — is presumably the same story told by Bence Ambrus in the liner notes for the release. I’ll present them here to save you my paraphrasing:

About ten years ago in Spain I had a crazy experience in the Granada night with a Colombian coke-guy who held a knife in his hand. All I had with me was my backpack, its contents: some water and clothes. No map, no phone either.

I decided to escape the knife-police-situation and the city itself, so I decided to walk all the way down to the coast… The only problem was I hadn’t realized that the highest mountain range of Spain would be in the way between Granada and the coast.

So I walked “down” into the Alpujarras, then on towards the Almijaras, then down to Almunécar. The trek took a few days, during which all I had to eat were almonds and pomegranates.

In this release, I’d like the listeners to accompany me on my trip: washing your underwear in mountain springs, scavenging for edible seeds and fruit, having to keep on going all night because there are only cliffs both left and right, with not a single flat place to lie down to sleep at. Not to mention nights being cold as hell, of course.

When you finally reach the coast, buying a few beers and drinking them by the sea is a definite must.

Ambrus, who is at the center of Psychedelic Source and organizes many of the get-together-type jams that result in the releases on the label, has also released solo outings under his own name, and Diablo in Alpujarras is close to that in terms of what he’s playing. But it’s also a band name. Band and self-titled album, in the vein of Psychedelic Source Records offerings like River Flows Reverse, :Nepaal, and so on. And Ambrus is joined on the 45-minute (not days-long) outing by Sándor Nagy, who solidifies the ethereal guitar and bass at the foundation of the material, while Mátè Varga adds further percussion hither and yon along the way.

In telling his tale — whether it’s true or not, I don’t know and it doesn’t really matter; given the proclivity for improv, I tend to believe it — Ambrus goes on to say that the guitar parts across Diablo in Alpujarras, whether it’s the wistful meandering of “Consolamentum” or the cool night air wrought in “Solanaceaes,” were recorded at home in August, following the birth of his (I think second) child. Nagy‘s drum parts had already been tracked, and one assumes those became the backbeats around which the atmospheric, psychedelic meander takes place. I don’t know how much editing was or wasn’t involved, but the clever play between rainsticks in the penultimate “Sleeprain” and actual rain in the subsequent “Sleeprain Pt. II,” Ambrus finds a balance between droning minimalism and intimacy.

Especially as “Sleeprain” has no drums to speak of and “Sleeprain Pt. II” dials them way back from the level of activity, say, on opener “Diablo Oscuro” — still plenty mellow, by the way — or the 11-minute “Beneficio,” where after seven minutes into the total 11 the drums allow the listener to stay grounded as the guitar prefaces the float one finds in the “Sleeprain” duology, the balance between Diablo in Alpujarras seems to be between solo-album-type expression and a fuller-band presence.

There’s a whole other layer to the release when one considers the narrative unfurled above next to the birth of a child, and whether it’s escapist nostalgia from an overloaded brain — if you don’t have a kid, I’m sorry but I can’t think of a situation to compare it to in terms of what’s happening in your body chemically and emotionally; its like crazymaniajoypanichorrorreliefplusnosleep — or just thinking of new life and the ways one has spent one’s own, the fact of putting the listener in a different space by going there musically makes for a fascinating aspect of the material’s persona. Sometimes I think about driving out 12-15 hours to go to a doom fest in the Midwest like 15 years ago, or that time The Patient Mrs. and I got lost in Rome on our honeymoon (20 years ago and then some) and wandered along the side of a highway for however many kilometers it was before we gave up. Never did make it to the catacombs. Alas. On the most basic level, it’s not the kind of decision you would undertake if you had a kid with you.

I think a lot about family, about music, about what it means to be a ‘lifer’ in some form of creative existence. There are always balances to strike, to adjust, work and rework, and in my experience over the last eight years as a parent, there’s nothing more consuming or difficult that parenting. Nobody likes to talk about that aspect of it — I can’t speak for everywhere, but where I live the broader cultural expectation is that you should be like an advertisement for parenting while doing so; “isn’t this great and rewarding and something you’d definitely want to do even if you weren’t genetically compelled to do so?”– but most of parenting is a job. It’s work. I’ve had more hard days than easy ones, and part of that is my personality and mode of parenting and part of it is just the nature of the thing. Unless your idea of ‘raisin’ ’em right’ involves putting them in a basket and floating it down the river, sooner or later you’re going to have to put some effort in.

Maybe that means less time for other things just then, and it can be hard to keep the broad-view in mind when it’s seven-plus years later and all of a sudden you’re not allowed to sleep through the night again and you have no idea why, but when something is a part of you, whether that’s art, music, woodworking, whatever, you find ways to do it and maybe even share it that, hopefully, you can appreciate as refreshing and a new kind of experience unto themselves. I don’t know that that’s what’s happening here or not, but at the very least Diablo in Alpujarras is evocative, and that’s where my head went with it. This world is mostly garbage. Find your satisfaction where, when and how you can.

As always, I hope you enjoy. Thanks for reading.

—

I don’t have a ton to say here. The Pecan has strung together a few good days at school — we see the updates on an app they update in the classroom; I both hate it and it’s pretty convenient at tracking basic compliance with what’s happening in the class — and that feels good in the cautious way of having seen the rug pulled out from under such things before. But the point is she’s working hard and I respect the shit out of that. They’ve got her trying to ‘earn points’ to get to play on an iPad at the free period at the end of the day. All carrots at the ends of all sticks rot eventually, so I’ll be curious what the next thing will be when this wears itself out.

Next week, as much as I can review, I will review. That’s my plan. I was honestly thinking of doing another 50-release Quarterly Review, but no. No. Not yet. November, maybe, or early December ahead of year-end-list time. It’s too soon, having just finished one on Monday.

That made the week kind of weird, but so it goes. I’m glad the week is over. The Pecan’s birthday party is this weekend (her actual birthday is next weekend) and we’ve invited like 20-something kids to go ice skating at Mennen Arena — a North Jersey staple — for it. I don’t skate. Or party. That’ll be Sunday. Saturday night I’m going to see Kal-El in Brooklyn. I’ve been dreading the drive for two months. Not even kidding. That’s what it’s like to be in my head at this point. Once the music starts, it’ll be fine.

Have a great and safe weekend. Hydrate. Fuck fascism, free Palestine, death to the corporate overlords. Never forget who the assholes are now so you can hold it in front of their faces later at fantasy tribunals that’ll never happen.

FRM.

The Obelisk Collective on Facebook

The Obelisk Radio

The Obelisk merch

Tags: Diablo in Alpujarras, Diablo in Alpujarras Self-titled, Hungary, Páty, Psychedelic Source Records, self-titled

This entry was posted on Friday, October 17th, 2025 at 12:56 pm and is filed under Bootleg Theater. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.