Two and a half years since our special feature for Barcelona based post hardcore / noise rock act LULLAVY, we’re thrilled to give you the band’s new offering, a compellingly diversified and multi-faceted split record with their friends from Canary Islands, a trio called CONJUNTO PODENCO. Today, we’re giving it a nod, with a special first-hand track by track commentary and the band’s thoughts on the current Coronavirus situation, as well as Barcelona alt music scene.
LULLAVY started as a solo folkish project of Saúl Ibáñez and it evolved to what it is today: a rock band with noise, punk, alternative (and many more) influences.
The main evolution since then has been the way we write songs, now they’re done in the practice room, all three us jamming together, making noise until we come to a common ground we love and we can work with. We change the songs many times until we’re happy with them. It can be an exhausting process, but it’s also fun and we enjoy it a lot. We believe that if you’re in a band you have to like all the moments of it, not only playing live and recording the songs. We think every note through and it’s great. Even when a song is recorded and released it can be changed somehow.
Asked about their take on the current Coronavirus situation and plans for the future, the band offered:
Right now our plans are waiting to see how the Covid-19 thing goes. We had some dates we had to cancel, we couldn’t even go to pick up our copies of the album. As soon we can play again we’ll play the album with Conjunto Podenco as much as we can and we’ll finish our second album, which is more or less half way.
Covid-19 has been a real catastrophe in the music scene in Barcelona as in many places. Right now there are no concerts or festivals, releases are being delayed, venues and record shops closed… It’s hard to know how’s everything gonna be after the crisis. The good thing is no bad situation has stopped people from doing music or art in general. They, and we, will continue making songs, that’s for sure.
We’re all in other projects: Ernest is the most active one, he plays in Salina and The Walking Lands too, those bands and us are in the same rehearsal room, so we’re a little bit of family, and we get to try other people’s gear, which is so cool too. Guillem plays guitar in Mardemarmo, an instrumental post rock band. Saúl has Páramo, a singer-songwriter thing which hasn’t realease anything yet.
The new album is a split record with the Canary Islands band Conjunto Podenco, they are friends and we think we’re in the same musical place. We decided to make this thing right after we released Ruina, our first album. We went to Gran Canaria to record it with José A. Pérez (also the drummer of Conjunto Podenco), who mixed and mastered Ruina. We did our part in three days, José made a great work and we felt very comfortable there. We will propably record more things with him, he really gets us. For us this record is great accomplishment, because it’s made with friends, it’s an encounter with musicians we love and admire. Also the label Repetidor asked us to join them and released the record, which is more than awesome.
Track-by-track commentary – LULLAVY’s side
Bulldozer: It’s the most go-to-the-point song of our side of the record. Saúl came with the main riff and we focused on making a punk rock song. Lyrics came from the police brutality happening in Barcelona in October 2017, so the title can refer to the sound of the song or to the violence of the government cracking innocent people’s bones.
Tu fiesta: Started as a simple, chord-based song with a lot of noise (Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr, Pavemente like), later we came with the quiet-loud-quiet final part. It’s about capitalism keeping you low, working, productive, as you grow apart from your friends and family. Leonard Cohen died while we were writing the final part, so we talk about him too (‘Now that the poet’s dead…’).
Veinticinco horas: Guillem found a super cool natural effect two singular notes made when you distort the tone a lot, so we started playing with it for a while and added parts. At some points guitar and bass make two very different riffs and we added the main verses of the lyrics there, because it was new to us and, once we mastered it, sounded great and it was fun to play.
Si no lo piensas: We wanted to make an extra short song, and we made it, more or less. It’s based on two simple chords, and we added variations in the harmony and the rhythm. Lyrics are just one sentence repeated several times, it’s about a moment in Spain when five serial gang rapist got away with it after a trial. There were a lot of protests and demonstrations over the country, so we said: ‘You don’t care about all that pain but it will take all over you’. Fuck them.
Barcelona alt music scene
There are a bunch of bands and labels trying to make their best these days. Some artists are creating and releasing music from home. There are compilations and online concerts.
Barcelona local scene is always producing interesting bands and projects. There are actually several scenes. We really love Los Sara Fontan, a violin-drums instrumental duo which can surprise you every twenty seconds, and Parmesano, a great combination of tropical rhythms with math rock.
