The Poni Republic: April 2009

28.4.09

Nuuro, Reddest Ruby

Hace cinco años Alejandro Ghersi comenzó a producir y regalar sus canciones en MP3 hasta que éstas consiguieron darle la vuelta al continente americano en distintas escenas y círculos sociales, en gran parte debido a la calidad y versatilidad de su trabajo, pues éste desde un comienzo ha oscilado entre varios géneros musicales que van desde el IDM, el drum & bass, la indietronica, el shoegazer electrónico, y muy, muy a menudo, el pop.

Nuuro, luego de haber debutado con el LP “All Clear” a través del sello mexicano Soundsister, cuatro años luego, por fin decidió autoeditarse su segunda larga duración titulada “Reddest Ruby”, en la que sin buscarle mucho, podemos percibir una madurez abismal entre su primer trabajo y éste. Algo que quizá se deba principalmente a que desde el año pasado este chico dejó su ciudad natal Caracas por una vida menos pasiva en Brooklyn.

Cual sea el caso, “Reddest Ruby” es una obra de arte completa, musicalmente y gráficamente (contiene 7 hermosas piezas realizadas por el artista Nikolay Saveliev), incluso, trae consigo guardado un poema bastante complejo y muy bien logrado del que surge todo el concepto del disco. En fin, como se habrán dado cuenta seguimos sin aliento, y a continuación, descubrirán por qué.

Esta nueva joya ya se encuentra disponible a la venta en iTunes.

Texto vía PlayGround.

// NUURO / REDDEST RUBY //

1.- Introduction, or (more aptly), Reddest Ruby
2.- Cotacachi!
3.- Bari (Japanese Tree That Speaks)
4.- Stone Girl
5.- Forest Fire (Intermission)
6.- Six Vespers
7.- Avila
8.- Five Lakes (Near the Capital)
9.- Hail and Farewell
10.- Ilimuh
11.- An Owl Waving Goodbye

BUY REDDEST RUBY AT ITUNES

Tracked and produced by Alejandro Ghersi. Album art direction by Nikolay Saveliev. Mastered by Eduardo Larez at Visionear studios. All songs written and performed by Alejandro Ghersi, except on track 3. "Bari, or (more aptly) Japanese Tree That Speaks," guitars and bass written and performed by Julio Briceño. Contact: www.nuuro.net.

Some rights reserved. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 2.5 License. The Poni Republic, 2009.

16.4.09

Elisa Malo

www.elisabambi.com

Spondee, Self-Titled EP

Here we have one of those odd cases at the Poni Republic. Why? Because Clint, the front man of this band from Idaho, sent us an e-mail a lot of months ago, when he was still living in Mexico, and due to the huge amount of spam and bad demos we receive daily, we sorta missed it. But, when he got back home and finished his "Pop Your Sucks Off" LP, he decided to contact us again, but this time with a pretty cool story about his experience in Ecatepec (WTF where you doing there man!?) and his crush on Julieta Venegas that made our day.

Anyways, the deal is, Spondee reminds us of many things. Mostly pretty things, like our first night out with that cute foreigner indie rocker, who –at first– just looked like a cute hippie, but in the end, turns out this person listens to Built To Spill and whatever’s blasting off your average college radio all the time; and with a smile too. Always dancing and giggling, snapping them fingers, looking beautiful 24/7, like no way dude... Ain’t that cool?

Oh come on, there’s nothing better than going out to a pub, play air hockey, eat hot wings, ignore “the” ball game on telly all your nerdy friends are nuts about, and instead, hook up that hottie who just happens to have a Vespa waiting for you two outside.

So now you know what we did last spring break. Perhaps you should try it too.

// SPONDEE EP //

1.- Welcom
2.- Lovelorn Robot
3.- Annie's Home Tonite
4.- Pop Your Socks Off
5.- Some Say She's Evil
6.- Dancin' Shoes

DOWNLOAD EP
RAR file, includes artwork

Spondee is Melissa Vickery (keys), Cody White (guitar), Noah Jensen (bass), Clint Vickery (vocals/guitar/keys), Seth Kasunik (drums), James Lloyd (conga/tambourine), Gia Trotter (vocals on tracks 4 & 5). All songs written by Clint Vickery. Recorded/Mastered at Coming In Second studio by Jeremy Jensen & Clint Vickery. Some rights reserved. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 2.5 License. The Poni Republic, 2009.

13.4.09

Lázaro Valiente, COMPOSIÇÃO NÃO DETERMINADA EP

One year ago, while traveling through Brazil in search of a legit "Tropicalia treatment" for their sound and rearranging some of their indie folk pop tunes at the studio, Lázaro found an object, a label, a tiny tag in cloth.

It was the label with the textile composition of a blanket that belonged to the house where Mauricio Pastrana and his friends (Caloca, his loyal squire, and Lázaro, his more than-beloved dog) were staying at in São Paulo, more specifically, Rua Dos Pinheiros.

Such tag only contained the message: COMPOSIÇÃO NÃO DETERMINADA (non-determined composition).

Lázaro Valiente found interesting to include "non-determined" compositions and show, next to the songs, a series of images, creating the art of the music material.

So, for the art of this release, we thought it would be interesting (and fun) to invite all of his (and our) friends to help us –for we usually are the ones in charge of the artworks– build up the concept behind Lázaro Valiente’s debut online.

Thus, the following experiment starts off by listening to Lazaro Valiente's songs and slowly scrolling down this growing visual improvisation that will be over until the first half of March. Such improvisation will allow us all to discover, one by one, each visual element that in the end will conform altogether the release’s artwork.

The point of all this, is that everyone in the end will eventually pick their favorite image for each song or EP cover (using iTunes).

¡Salud!

// COMPOSIÇÃO NÃO DETERMINADA //

1.- Benvindo
2.- And Never Call Me On The Phone
3.- Dinamo
4.- Alfombran el día

DOWNLOAD EP
RAR file, includes artwork

Some rights reserved. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 2.5 License. The Poni Republic, 2009.