Computer Age

Bandini
The Sunny Album
Junk Records 2007

Decalogue of a great debut

1. Who has been Bandini mask? A quartet of rock guitars can cover Madrid dirty realism and stark intimacy. Bandini put the perfect soundtrack for those in complete solitude are devoured by his inner ghosts.

2. The cover of "The Sunny Album" (Junk Records, 2007) is designed by Pepe Hernández (Grupo Salvaje). I do not know if she is pretty or ugly. It is disturbing. This blonde girl looks inward. Introspection. Something that defines Bandini. The script ends with a photo of the smiling girl in question. As the disc. Or almost.

3. Double album. Triple somersault to debut art. It takes great courage to stand before the world with such torrential speech. One thinks of large 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 "by The Who," The River "Bruce Springsteen's" London Calling "the Clash's" Being There "by Wilco, the first two albums by Tindersticks, the second of Red House Painters ... there's nothing. The case is that it is too complicated to maintain a qualitative level without swings on a double cd. Bandini out gracefully. They have made a genius of the caliber of the White Album "Fab Four", but in his debut cracks are not observed. That is because this band from Madrid has had ample time to handle every single detail, for each arrangement with the chisel of a sculptor mime forward to transcend the first attempt.

4. What defines Bandini musically? The emotion. The songs written by Ricardo Ruiz are written with heart and guts (as noted by writing Bukowski John Fante, creator of the literary myth is Arturo Bandini). Within this emotional high voltage rock fit all genres and nuances. This group likes to dig Madrid in the folk rock of a clear American. But they also find room to explore dark terrains (rock at idle, melancholic chamber pop) or directly black (blues, soul and even gospel).

5. Each CD contains two songs-stream. These four compositions that go beyond the 7 minutes are the backbone of "The Sunny Album". In the first disc are "Shooting Stars" and "Depression". That is, the assumption that you have no desire to ask these shooting stars and falling into depression when your whole world falls apart. That tension is neutralized in the second cd. "Autumn Song" and "Wait Until Spring" proclaim that there is still the bastion of hope. The icy cold of Norway (where he lived for a while Ricardo Ruiz) is not eternal. Life can lead you down paths of distress or frustration, but there will always be a loophole through which the light strain. You just have to wait for the warm breath of spring. That exception to the rule that is happiness comes and sparks justified their banality, unmitigated defeat, the painful isolation. On the other hand, it is to note that three of the four songs are decorated with string arrangements and all of them are growing until it reaches the end of the composition a cathartic climax.

6. The theme of the album ranges from the frustration ( "Did You Ever Have A Dream Like Mine?"), Through lack of love ( "Together"), sex without love ( "How Is Your Mind") the chagrin of the "outsider" ( "Something Goes Wrong"), the ambivalence of hating himself, but at the same time proudly proclaimed that he is happy to be like it ( "Happy To Be Me"), nostalgia obscures these windows we call eyes ( "Missing," "The Sheet That Dreams Are Made Of"), the anxiety of the "loser" ( "All The Pain"), dressed in hopes of remorse ( "One Day") and the question of who lives in the darkness and hoped that the dark night light illuminates the soul ( "Shine"). The route is clear. One barely surviving. For love. He takes refuge in sex. Dying in the desert. He looks around him and society oppresses them. He is alienated. Write to empty, to flee, to find meaning. And Bandini ends up finding redemption in the healing power of music.

7. John Fante is the most obvious literary reference, but there are hints throughout "The Sunny Album". If you dig, you find citations to Paul Auster, Emily Bronte, Nietzsche and Kant. 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 also arrangements are essentially a group of guitars. The keyboard is not only a mattress, but some passages leading towards the vision of beautiful landscapes. And the rhythmic foundation majestically holds all the scaffolding. You just have to hope that in subsequent deliveries Bandini expand horizons in structuring the songs.

9. Brainy beyond analysis, what remains is the truth of a handful of songs born to last. Bandini require an effort of the listener. His songs do not come to the first. Although it is true that they have something like a "hit" (the pop song is "Happy To Be Me," his song with more commercial potential). They have the backing of any of the subjects leathery ( "All The Pain") and, above all, know how to hit the target when they explode their lyrical (would illustrate "The Sheet That Dreams Are Made Of", "Autumn Song, "" One Day "or" Together ").

10. And we got to the thorny issue of influences. First of all it seems difficult to locate somewhere in the national scene. Their referents are different. Quench your thirst at the trough in the other alchemists who refreshed the likes of Nick Drake, John Lennon, Elliott Smith, Leonard Cohen, Neil Young, Lou Reed, Mark Eitzel, Mark Kozelek, Stuart Staples, Jeff Tweedy and Nick Cave. But let's be clear, Bandini is not a revisionist group. They are inspired as those in crisis and have the courage to do a striptease disarming emotional. They defeat the courage of one who has lost everything, but still struggling.