Computer Age

Bandini
The Sunny Album
Junk Records 2007

Decalogue of a great debut

1. Who has the mask of Bandini? A quartet of rock guitar Madrid capable of covering the dirty realism and the stark intimacy. Bandini put the perfect soundtrack for those who are in full solitude devoured by their ghosts inside.

2. The cover of "The Sunny Album" (Junk Records, 2007) is designed by Pepe Hernandez (Group Savage). I do not know if it is beautiful or ugly. It was disturbing. This blond girl looks inward. Introspection. Something that defines Bandini. The book ends with a photo of the smiling girl in question. As the disc. Or almost.

3. Double album. Triple somersault for artistic debut. It takes a lot of courage to appear before the world with such torrential speech. One thinks of big double disks and you come to mind "The White Album" by the Beatles, "Exile on Main Street" by the Rolling Stones, the "Blonde on Blonde" by Bob Dylan, "Quadrophenia" of the Who, " The River "by Bruce Springsteen," London Calling "by the Clash," Being There "by Wilco, the first two discs of Tindersticks, the second of Red House Painters ... There is nothing. The case is that it is extremely difficult to maintain a qualitative level smoothly in a double cd. Bandini emerging succeed. They have not made a genius of the caliber of the White Album of the "Fab Four", but in his debut there are no cracks. That is because this band of Madrid has had ample time to take care of every detail, to each according to the chisel of a sculptor mime forward beyond the first try.

4. What defines a musically Bandini? The emotion. The songs written by Ricardo Ruiz are written from the heart and bowels (as highlighted by Bukowski's writing John Fante, creator of the literary myth that is Arturo Bandini). Within this high-voltage rock emotionally fit all kinds of genres and nuances. This group likes to scratch Madrid in the folk rock of clear American descent. But they also found room for exploring dark terrain (rock idling, melancholic pop of a camera) directly or black (blues, soul and even gospel).

5. Each CD contains two songs-river. Those four compositions that go beyond the 7 minutes are the backbone of "The Sunny Album." On the first disc are "Shooting Stars" and "Depression". That is, assuming that one has no desire to ask these shooting stars and falling into depression when your whole world falls apart. This tension is neutralized in the second cd. "Autumn Song" and "Wait Until Spring" proclaim that there is still the stronghold of hope. The icy cold of Norway (where he lived for a while Ricardo Ruiz) is not eternal. Life can lead you astray from misfortune or frustration, but there will always be a loophole through which the light through the back door. You just have to wait until it reaches the warm breath of spring. That exception to the rule is that happiness comes and justifies its coruscations banality, the defeat unequivocally, the painful isolation. It should also be pointed out that three of the four songs are decorated with string arrangements and all of them will grow up to the final composition of a cathartic climax.

6. The theme of the album ranges from frustration ( "Did You Ever Have A Dream Like Mine?"), Through the disaffection ( "Together"), sex without love ( "How Is Your Mind") the chagrin of the "outsider" ( "Something Goes Wrong"), the ambivalence that hates himself, but at the same time proudly proclaims that he is happy to be like ( "Happy To Be Me"), the nostalgia that tarnishes those windows that we call eyes ( "Missing", "The Sheet That Dreams Are Made Of"), the anguish of the "loser" ( "All The Pain"), dressed in the hope remorse ( "One Day") and doubt of living in darkness and light illuminates the hopes that dark night of the soul ( "Shine"). The route is clear. One hardly survive. Find love. Takes refuge in sex. Dying in solitude. Looks around him and society oppresses him. He is alienated. Writes for emptying, to flee, to find a direction. And Bandini just finding redemption in the healing power of music.

7. John Fante is the most obvious literary reference, but there are other winks along "The Sunny Album." If a scratch, he found citations to Paul Auster, Emily Brontë, Kant and Nietzsche. Also an explicit homage to the seminal western "The Searchers" (John Ford) in "Missing".

8. The expressiveness of the voice of Ricardo Ruiz is vital. But they are also arrangements of a group of mostly guitars. The keyboard not only serves as a cushion, but some passages leading towards the vision of beautiful landscapes. And the rhythmic foundation contends with majesty around the scaffold. You just have to hope that in subsequent deliveries Bandini broaden horizons in terms of structuring the songs.

9. Beyond brainy analysis, what remains is the truth of a handful of songs born to endure. Bandini require an effort of the listener. Their songs are not the first. While it is true that they have something resembling a "hit" (the pop anthem that is "Happy To Be Me," his song with more commercial potential). They have the backing of some other issue that leathery ( "All The Pain") and, above all, know how to exploit on the board when his lyrical vein (would illustrate "The Sheet That Dreams Are Made Of," "Autumn Song, "" One Day "or" Together ").

10. And now the thorny issue of influences. Before that nothing seems to be difficult to place somewhere on the national scene. Their are referring others. To satisfy their thirst in the trough in which cools other alchemists of the stature of Nick Drake, John Lennon, Elliott Smith, Leonard Cohen, Neil Young, Lou Reed, Mark Eitzel, Mark Kozelek, Stuart Staples, Jeff Tweedy or Nick Cave. But be sure, Bandini is not a revisionist group. Inspired as those in times of crisis and have the courage to make a "striptease" emotional disarming. They count their defeat with courage that he has lost everything, but still struggling.