The Spanish Art Rock Experience was an event held in Sala Charada, right in the heart of Madrid. The venue is a night club where a raised part of the room is reutilised as a stage. This meant there wasn't a lot of room for the musicians to move about much and lighting was limited. The most impressive lighting being above the audiences head where a multi-coloured LED matrix (about 3M x 6M) which displayed an animated series of geometric shapes (except when it crashed, when it displayed the Asus logo and an error message). The night promised 3 bands, which is exactly what was delivered.
Cloudmap
Cloudmap was the first of the bands
that were completely new to me and are from Madrid. The group
comprise:
Chema Segoviano: Guitar
Alberto Segoviano: Keyboards
Javier Espejo: Vocals
Manuel Coromina: Bass
& Acoustic Guitar
Ángel Muñoz: Bass
& Mandolin
Hector Calderón: Drums
Their set began with the playback of
HAL's death/shutdown sequence from '2001: A Space Odyssey' and the
band came in where HAL began singing 'Daisy, Daisy' in the original.
Initially Manuel Coromina was on
acoustic guitar and Angel Muñoz on bass. After two songs Manuel
Coromina took over the bass and Angel Muñoz picked up an odd
instrument that I first thought was an electric lute (yeah, let's
hear it for more rock lute), but later thought it was more likely a
very short scale 12 string electric guitar – He was moving around
so much it was difficult to get a good look at it. It was only later
when I consulted the Subterranea web-site that I saw he was credited
with 'mandolin' (which usually has 8 strings), so perhaps this is a
prog mandolin, in similar vein to the ubiquitous 7 string guitar so
beloved of prog metal bands.
Throughout the performance there were
sound montages between songs, including additional sections from
'2001: A Space Odyssey'. Overall Cloudmap were enjoyable. In terms
of influences (or trite comparisons on my part) I couldn't help
thinking they'd listened to a good dose of Porcupine Tree / StevenWilson with some Rush and Black Sabbath thrown in.
Sonutopia
This group were also unknown to me
prior to this concert. They are based in La Coruña, in the North of
Spain and comprise:
Xoan
Limia: Guitar
Javi
Paz: Keyboards
Cristóbal
Castro: Drums
Santy
Souto: Vocals
Víctor
Gacio: Bass
There
were two things that stood out about this group. The first being
that the entire set seemed to consist of guitar solos. The keyboard
player was allowed a couple of short organ solos and the vocalist
was allowed to warble a few words between fretboard virtuosic
widdlyness but it was very clear that the star of the show was Xoan
Limia on guitar. Or at least he would have been if it wasn't for one
other member of the group – the drummer.
They
announced towards the end of the set that the drummer had had to
learn the set in two weeks, so I cannot be certain if he was actually
Cristóbal Castro as listed above (and taken from the Subterranea web-site). What was beyond doubt was that this guy could groove. He
played with great feel and imagination and contrasted against the
guys of Cloudmap to show just what a difference a good drummer can
make.
The
groups/musicians I was most reminded of by this set was Mostly Autumn
(sans female vocalist) and Jimmy Page, but then this group was all
about the guitarist.
The
vocalist took a couple of songs to get warmed up but then put in a
sterling performance with some excellent rock vocals and also played
rhythm guitar on some numbers.
Harvest
Harvest were the main attraction of the evening. I first heard of Harvest after many reviews of the Celebr8.2 festival (held in Kingston,
London) raved about this group. After some youtube research and
inspecting their web-site (www.harvestband.com)
I
downloaded the two CDs from Bandcamp.
Harvest comprise:
Monique Van der Kolk: Vocals
Jordi Prats: Guitar
Jordi Amela: Keyboards
Alex Ojea: Drums
Toni Munné: Bass
It
was glaringly obvious from the outset that this band are in a
different league to the previous groups. The sound is much more
sophisticated with beautiful arrangements and thoughtful use of the
keyboard sounds. Where the previous two groups had a wall of sound
that made distinguishing the individual instruments difficult, if not
impossible, with Harvest each instrument had its place and fitted
perfectly into the whole. The result was a sparse yet powerful
sound that was a pleasure to listen to.
The
outstanding element had to be Monique's vocals. In turns delicate
and powerful, but always perfectly pitched, her performance was pure
ear candy (OK and maybe some eye candy as well).
Once
again the drums were a decisive factor in the overall performance,
sadly not in the positive way that was the case with Sonutopia. I
felt that the drums were consistently played behind the beat and the
other musicians were having to hold back to remain in time. The
drummer wore headphones throughout and I can only guess that he was
playing along to a click-track and something was wrong with the track
as other live performances on youtube do not exhibit this tendency.
Conclusion
An enjoyable evening where each group provided something of interest. I hope the Spanish Art Rock Experience continues to promote progressive rock in Spain and introduces me to new bands and new sounds. Maybe they will for you too?
