HAPPY FREUDS. SPANISH/ENGLISH REVIEW. ROCK, CLASE Y FRESCURA.

HAPPY FREUDS.

Conocí y escuché por primera vez a la joven banda Happy Freuds de Javea-España a través de la página de Reverbnation con canciones como la increíble "Background Noise" y las poderosas "Song-X" y "Chauncey". Luego fui a su primer concierto en la ciudad de Valencia, en Black Note, y me dejaron boquiabierto con sus fresca e intensa presencia de nuevo-viejo rock y su ecléctica gama de sonidos y estilos. Su primer disco se llama "Echoes of Sounds" y ya preparan su segundo disco. Producciones en vivo para salvar su frescura. Se cuidan mucho de no usar overdubs cuando la mayoría de las veces no es necesario, sus guitarras tienen el sonido y la clase de algunos de los grandes artistas de los 70 como Crazy Horse o bandas de hard rock –construcción y progresión, frescura y valentía– y el delicado toque de armonías, afianzado por la base rítmica de las líneas de bajo oscilantes y progresivas y la riqueza y complejidad de la batería.
He leído que mencionan a Black Sabath y Radiohead, y también tocan en vivo algunas versiones especiales de los exquisitos Gavin Clark o Tom Petty. Un viejo músico de jazz dijo una vez: "todos tocamos música folk". Música de la gente para la gente. También puedo escuchar en la música de Happy Freuds a The Felice Brothers o los sonidos de la primera banda de Patti Smith. Oh. ¡No olvidemos la voz! Consiguen la voz más apropiada para cada canción, saben cuidar el “delivery” vocal (esto no sucede a menudo hoy en día) y pueden usar la palabra hablada o la voz más rockera.



Atrapan los oídos del oyente porque todos los oyentes tienen que preguntarse dónde y cuándo llega el gancho con que atrapa una canción y su gancho es toda la canción. Cuando escucho los temas, veo que tienen una miríada de música anterior y un fondo ecléctico. Escuchando Song X o Too Blue no puedo etiquetarlos y eso es lo que más me gusta.
Crecí escuchando todo tipo de música y estilos y aprecio lo honestos y talentosos que son los intérpretes. Aprendí que la voz, las palabras o la música deben ser honestas y atrevidas. Happy Freuds puede ser folk rock lírico como Too Blue o hard rock progresivo como Song X, pero incluso pueden tocar una melodía europea tradicional y hacerla suya.

HAPPY FREUDS WEBSITE. MUSIC, LINKS, VIDEOS, NEWS

Algunos cantantes o bandas aparecen en las listas de Spotify y muchos de ellos serán olvidados con el paso del tiempo, y juro que nadie en mi vecindario sabe quiénes son. Happy Freuds exploran y en su avance está el aviso de que van a seguir haciéndolo. Se sabrá quiénes son, serán parte del futuro.
Porque las canciones son naves exploradoras, naves espaciales. Happy Freuds es una de mis bandas favoritas de este nuevo siglo. Date un respiro. Luego levántate. Entra en la pista. Baila sobre eso. Escucha. "Porque todavía amo el color azul".

HAPPY FREUDS YOUTUBE CHANNEL


© Fernando Garcin, enero 2020

HAPPY FREUDS, ENGLISH REVIEW.

What you first notice listening to Happy Freuds songs –listen to their Duncan Morriosn remixes- and their debut album “Echoes of Sounds” is that you have to leave behind some prejudices about definitions. Yes. It’s rock what they play, and they can make classic rock with sounds of today, but they also can play progressive or alternative rock and you can think of some 70’s and 90’s influences but, at the same time, they have this rare wondering touch few young bands have. It is the fresh sound, the way they record, the way they feel the music, and something else you will have to find out. They way of life is the answer. They live for playing live, in a studio, a basement, or in a concerts venue. Their first album of songs, "Echoes of Sounds" is being played around the world (2019) and they are already working on their second album.



I first knew and listened to the Javea-Spain based young band Happy Freuds thru Reverbnation page with songs like the amazing “Background Noise” and the powerful “Song-X” and “Chauncey”. I then went to their very first gig in Valencia city at Black Note and they just blew my mind with their fresh and intense rock’n’roll ways and eclectic range of sounds and styles. Live productions to save their freshness. They take much care to not use overdubs as not necesary, their guitars have the sound and class of some 70’s great performers like Crazy Horse or hard rock bands –build up and progress, coolness and bravery- and the delicate touch of armonies, tightened by the rhythmic base of rocking and progressive bass lines and the richness and complexity of drums.
I have read they talk about Black Sabath and Radiohead, and they also play live some special covers of the exquisite Gavin Clark or Tom Petty. Some old jazz musician once said: “we all play folk music”. Music from the people to the people. I can also hear in Happy Freuds music by The Felice Brothers or Patti Smith first band sounds. Oh. Dont forget the voice! They got the voice that is the right one for every song, they take care of the vocal delivery (this doesn’t happen often nowadays) and they can use the spoken word or the most rocking vocals.
They catch listener's ears because all listeners have to wonder and wait for the hook and their hook is the whole song. When listening to the tracks I see they have a myriads of previous music and eclectic background. Listening to Song X or to Too Blue I cannot label them and that's what I like the most.

HAPPY FREUDS WEBSITE, MUSIC. VIDEOS. NEWS

I grew up hearing all kind of music and styles and I appreciate how honest and talented the players are. I learnt voice or words or music have to be honest and daring. Happy Freuds can be as lyrical folk rock as Too Blue or as progressive hard rock as Song X but they can even play a traditional european tune and make it theirs.
Oh well, some singers or bands are featured on spotify lists and most of them will be forgotten in a while, and I swear nobody in my neighborhood knows who they are. Happy Freuds explore and in their trip you can read the warning that they will continue to do it. It will be known who they are, they will be part of the future.
Songs are explorer ships, spacecrafts. Happy Freuds are one of my favorite bands from this new century. Calm down. Then get up. Get in the track. Dance on it. Listen. "For I Still Love the Color Blue"."




HAPPY FREUDS YOUTUBE CHANNEL


© Fernando Garcin, january 2020.

TEN FOR A DECADE (Los 10 discos de la Década 2000)

Ten for a Decade
(Saving Graces)

© by Russell Craig Richardson

I have now lived in the USA for ten years. here's a survey of the new musics that have coloured my days and nights, not least all those long car journeys. More than ever important. These have been the most vital to me this past decade.



2003 Hobosapiens – John Cale
After the strange and wonderful release of ‘5 Songs’, it was heartening to see Cale – now in his 60s – coming up with high energy, undeniably modern music. the first use of loops and beats which didn’t seem to be a direct lift or pastiche of bad hip-hop, with Cale’s voice sounding as on edge as ever. A reinvention that is surprisingly layered and rich. I know you can’t actually wear out CDs… but if you could, this one would have been worn out many times over.
HOBOSAPIENS


2003 Hail To The Thief – Radiohead
more than any other successful contemporary band (as seen from an old geezer’s point of view) Radiohead have impressed me. After saturating myself with OK Computer, I fell into this record, Kid A and Amnesiac all at the same time, late 2005, so the impact was overwhelming, if out of date. I can’t find anything to complain about, and I admire their generosity, even if I think the music has lost some of its consistency through In Rainbows and King of Limbs, I have imbibed hundreds of hours of their sound. Maybe they are the Pink Floyd of modern pop. I don’t care, they convinced me. and if I throw in Thom Yorke’s The Eraser here, also convinced me that laptops and loops have the potential to be as authentic as an acoustic guitar and a voice. Always, in this context, the voice.
HAIL TO THE THIEF

2003 Tan Fiero, Tan Fragil – Fernando Garcin & M
This record, more than any other, has been the soundtrack of my American decade, I don’t think it’s only down to it being the first breakthrough of Fernando Garcin. What impressed me the most (and I have written about this elsewhere at greater length) is that TFTF represents both a valid assimilation of American idiom into a Spanish folk-rock; and it has an exuberant strength and self confidence in Fernando’s lyrics and delivery. This is very much a joyous and sincere work, but it takes off in several places, and becomes itself, rather than a sum of its influences.
The compilation Tiempo y Detalles reprises some of this, but lacks the s paces of this almost perfect album.
TAN FIERO TAN FRÁGIL
TIEMPO Y DETALLES



2004 The Milk Eyed Mender – Joanna Newsom
not cute or grating as some have insisted, but the complex result of a young musician's process, standing at the crossroads of the old, weird America, and staking a small, sincere claim to be a part of that tradition.
THE MILK-EYED MENDER

2005 Demon Days – Gorillaz
From their first album, which I actually heard on the car radio, to the multi-media splash of this, I was most impressed by the melancholy alongside the brashness. I never knew who Blur were (still don’t) but this project brought a lot of delight, and its own voice, while still reaching millions. A curious sensation, but a music which reached me entirely on its own terms, and I can’t argue with that.
DEMON DAYS

2005 Come on Feel the Illinoise – Sufjan Stevens
I listened to this first via a recommendation from Green Gartside (of Scritti Politti) as an example of unalloyed optimistic music. It’s simple in intent and execution, and has some kind of tension between optimism, naivety and wistfulness… but also a series of gorgeous melodies, a pure pop dynamic which goes back to late Beach Boys or Paul Simon. Hardly fashionable, I would have suspected, but ultimately completely persuasive.
COME ON FEEL THE ILLINOISE

2006 White Bread, Black Beer – Scritti Politti
a collection of bedsit pop songs from a musician in the wilderness? Or a set of perfectly crafted quiet songs to cut against all the artifice Green had been guilty of ever since the early structuralist days. Self-aware, self-critical, but with a sense of melodic and harmonic invention that builds its own world. After immersing myself in this, I looked up Scritti Politti’s ‘lost album’ Anomie and Bonhomie, and deeply regret not having listened to that throughout the 1990s. A survivor, finally.
WHITE BREAD, BLACK BEER

2007 Comicopera – Robert Wyatt
Robert Wyatt’s ‘late output’ has in fact been stronger than his early output. From Dondestan and Shleep onward… I feel that Cuckooland and Comocopera are slightly less driven or compact, but if these had been RW’s only works, they’d still be in some kind of pantheon. So, Cuckooland… another CD which I have ‘virtually’ worn out the grooves of over the years… is still a joy, and Comicopera, as it drifts further away from rock and closer to Wyatt’s jazz roots is even better, less compliant. A critical nod from an old campaigner that all is not lost, hasta siempre, Commandante.
COMICOPERA


2010 Ragged Atlas – Cosa Brava
another ‘catch up’ saturation, driven by the Henry Cow boxed set, was to dig into the solo work of Fred Frith, of which I was almost entirely ignorant. Some 15 albums later, I latched onto this side project, and have actually seen them live in NYC. somehow the recording lacks the punch of the live band, though the delicacies come across better. Anyway, as a nod to this kind of deep folk, intelligent music, still rooted in the dance (from an abstract improviser??) this is the business.
RAGGED ATLAS

2011 Let England Shake – P J Harvey
step back, leap forwards. from the first sneak internet preview I realized this was one of those rare works which stamps its integrity and never diminishes. if there has been a masterpiece in the last decade (to vie with Rock Bottom and Horses, or Blood on the Tracks and After the Goldrush, or Trout Mask Replica and OK Computer… this is it). It bears all the characteristics of a personal peak – a totally surprising progression in her own evolution, yet made to seem completely inevitable. As good as Dry, but farther reaching.
LET ENGLAND SHAKE

& older music, but...
2009 40th Anniversary Box – Henry Cow
though this was all recorded in the 60s 70s and early 80s, it’s unavailability until recently, plus the near saturation coverage (heavy rotation) I have been giving it, means I have to include its 14 hours of music as the main soundtrack of the past 3 years. It’s also been a painful listen to me, as I think this is what I should have been doing for the last 30 years: playing music derived from this template. That I stepped back from this tradition is probably one of my biggest regrets. Still, just the Bremen and Hamburg CDs here have influenced my editing and writing as much as any film or author, so perhaps it’s just the same. Structure, composition, craft and emotion?
40th ANNIVERSARY BOX

YOUTUBE VIDEOS:

JOHN CALE. MAGRITTE

FERNANDO GARCIN. BELA MONTE

JOANNA NEWSOM. 'EN GALLOP'

SCRITTI POLITTI. NO FINE LINES'

COSA BRAVA. POUR ALBERT'

GORILLAZ. EL MAÑANA'

© Russell Craig Richardson