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Dusted Features
Every Friday, Dusted Magazine publishes a series of music-related lists compiled by our favorite artists. This week: Mexico's brightest Los Llamarada and music's best graphic designer Kim Hiorthøy.
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Listed: Los Llamarada + Kim Hiorthøy
Los Llamarada
This five-piece from Monterrey, Mexico is making some serious noise south of the border. Actually, noise is sort of changing these guys. It’s only noise if you think Sonic Youth made noise back in the day. Lo-fi punk excursions into the sonicsphere that live up to the band’s English translation of “The Sudden Blaze.” The band’s debut LP The Exploding Now is undoubtedly one of the best rookie efforts of the year, and they just released a new 7” called “The Very Next Moment” that’s worth tracking down, if there’s any left. Danyhell (drums), Johnny Noise (guitar), Estrella Ek Sanza (vocals/synths) and Sagan (synths/vocals) all helped piece together this week’s Listed.
Well, this list includes not only music but also films and books, as they are part of our interests and inspirations. We would also like to mention the bands we have met this year: Times New Viking, Little Claw, Hank IV, Wooden Shjips…
1. Blonde Redhead
One of my favorite bands, they get better each time they release a new record, and I’m still completing my collection. A great influence while singing and composing. I knew of them through a friend, who was a big fan, and now I’m one, too, and I’m very happy with that. (Ek Sanza)
2. Bauhaus
The first “weird” English band I heard, thanks to my brothers. I was probably 10 years old. Peter Murphy’s voice captivated me, and I dreamed of being in band like that. No other band that my brothers liked had ever attracted me so much. (Ek Sanza)
3. Alaska y Dinarama
This Spanish band was the first one to make me go crazy, especially for Alaska, the singer. With her wardrobe, makeup, and hoarse voice she made me dance like a mad girl. I was 5 years old the first time I saw her on TV, and I thought that a singer had to be like her, totally, so she is one of my influences when I sing. (Ek Sanza)
4. Unknown minimalist piece on a state owned radio station
Something I heard when I was a kid. Just this guy hitting some steel cables for half an hour. And this old man from Oaxaca playing some drone piece on a violin. (Sagan)
5. The Fall – The Collection
I was under psychoanalysis with this ’70s former red rebel sort of freudomarxist guy. I would say “The world sucks” and he would in a way answer: “Yeah, you’re right! Everything sucks, everyone has sold out… Bob Dylan became a Christian… Jimi Hendrix died!”. So it wasn’t quite doing wonders to enhance my mood. And during that time I developed this (almost physical) certainty that the world was going to end soon so soon. The stuff that rock operas are made of: You could walk and hear invisible French horns punctuating your steps. But then I found some Fall CDs (which I had heard about thanks to markprindle.com) in the discount bin of a new record store. I guess they had looted some warehouse before opening it. So one day I found myself with two choices: paying another psychoanalytic session, or buying a Fall record. Guess what I bought… and I never stopped after that. (Sagan)
6. Alejandro Jodorowsky – El Topo
(Danyhell)
7. José Agustín – Se está haciendo tarde (final en laguna)
Psychedelic novel written while imprisoned by the corrupt police boss and self-proclaimed general Arturo “El Negro” Durazo. (Danyhell)
8. Black Sabbath – Paranoid
I’ve been listening a lot to this LP since I took it from Danyhell’s house. “Paranoid” is the first song I learned on guitar, and now I’m trying to learn some Tony Iommi riffs (like Rat Salad) so Danyhell can have this killer drum solo like Bill Ward’s. (Johnny Noise)
9. Boccaccio – Decameron
And the David Lean autobiography. And Antología de la Novela Mexicana, by José Agustín. (Johnny Noise)
10. Bruce Lee – Enter the Dragon
Lately I saw this movie for the seventh time. It includes fragments of his first TV appearances. In one of them he explains his philosophy of Combat without Combat, demonstrating that the best way to get rid of an opponent is fighting not physically, but mentally. There is a scene with an American martial artist making mischief on a ship, when Bruce suddenly appears. The American asks him while drawing punches in the air: “Which is your fighting style, scum?” And Bruce says: “My style is ‘fight without fighting.’” The bully asks: “And how is that?” Bruce tells him he needs a bigger space to demonstrate it, and proposes taking a canoe to a small island so he can show it. The bully is interested and gets on the canoe, which Bruce proceeds to untie without boarding, while the American finally learns the easy way to fight without fighting. (Johnny Noise)
Kim Hiorthøy
Kim Hiorthøy has been developing his brand of tuneful, sample-tinged electronic beats for the better part of a decade. Effortlessly weaving between nods to old-school b-boy breaks, orchestral motifs, and minimal techno (often in the same song), his music is damn-near impossible to pin down or categorize - Anticon without the gauzy pop leanings, Kompakt without the cold veneer. Melodic and personal on record, he's also a mother of a live performer when he targets the dancefloor. To boot, Hiorthøy is widely regarded for his endlessly inventive graphic design work for the Rune Grammofon record label, amongst others. His first album in three years, My Last Day, was just released on Smalltown Supersound.
1. Nick Drake - Pink Moon
I don't remember when I first heard this, maybe six or seven years ago. I got into listening to only the title track, more or less constantly every day, for about two months. I don't know about the other Nick Drake records, they don't get me nearly as much as this one.
2. Fred Frith - Step Across The Border
This is a soundtrack from a film about Fred Frith which I saw when I was 19. It changed a lot of things in my head and introduced me to many things I hadn't known about. The film is all right still, but the record has stayed with me much more. I don't know what it is, it's as if it has its own time or something, in a way that I don't know any other record that has. And so many good people on it and good songs.
3. Arthur Russell - World of Echo
My friend Joakim H. recommended this record to me - and to almost all his friends I think. When it was re-released, he told everyone about it.
4. Chris Moss Acid - Cassette Tape Tracks Vol.2
It's Chris Moss Acid. It is very good and will help you in your life in almost every way. And you can download it for free from V/VM here.
5. Shinro Ohtake & Yamantaka Eye - Pipeline: 24 Smash Hits by 24 Puzzle Punk Bands
Eye of Boredoms has a duo with artist Shinro Ohtake called Puzzle Punks. This is a record they made in ’96. It comes with a thick booklet full of Ohtake art. It has a lot of screaming and toy instruments on it and it's very inspiring and good for parties.
6. The Fall - Seminal Live
I love almost everything by The Fall, but this is one of my favorite records just because the versions of "L.A." and "Hit the North" on it. The version of "Hit The North" on here is maybe one of the best tracks I know of.
7. Stina Nordenstam - People Are Strange
I don't really like Stina Nordenstam, but this record is somehow different. It's all cover songs, but she makes them all new songs, and many of them sound like nothing else I've heard. Also the way this record is recorded, the sound on it, it … it sounds different, it sounds very good. Some have a bit of a kind of ’90s sound on them maybe, specially some of the drums, which maybe isn't always so great now, but some tracks, like “Love Hurts” or “Purple Rain” are amazing.
8. ESG - Keep On Moving
This is the new ESG record. When I saw that they were putting out a new record I thought there is no way that can be good, but I am an idiot. The music on this record is almost impossibly minimal, with many tracks consisting of almost nothing. It's funky as hell. A kind of hardcore funk death-star-of-nothingness laser disco-ball music.
9. Arto Lindsay - Mundo Civilizado
Ever since I saw that Fred Frith movie I've been a big fan of Arto Lindsay and the different records he's been on and made with different people. I remember when this record came out and, again, it sounded like nothing else I'd heard. It's similar to many things but it's still unmistakably something on its own. I think this record along with one that came before it, O Corpo Sutil, and one that came after it, Noon Chill, are considered to be a kind of trilogy. They all have the similar dark, syrupy but also kind of airy samba. Or maybe it's not samba, but it's something.
10. Big Black - The Hammer Party
Again this was a recommendation from Joakim H. I can't seem to find out about music on my own anymore. This is the two first Big Black EPs, Lungs and Bulldozer, from ’82 and ’83, respectively. Drum machine, drums and flangered guitars. It's a teaching record and a head banging record and a Sunday morning record for tea.
By Dusted Magazine
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