Màgia Roja

Id Est Quo Id Est

Month: June 2020

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Dame Area

Dame Area mixes synths and live percussion, industrialism and tribalism. Their music works as a musical Rorschach test: some people call them Tribal Wave, others Latin EBM, some say they do Techno Punk and others call them Industrial Postpunk. Silvia Konstance and Viktor L.Crux, (also in projects like Futuro de Hierro, Ordre Etern or Qa’a, and collaborator of Nurse With Wound and J.Arbeit from E.Neubauten) are part of Màgia Roja label and collective, Viktor being the resident DJ there.

Mixing synth bassline arpeggios and live percussions, noises and congas, industrialism and tribalism, Italian and Spanish, Dame Area are running across the same path and breathing the same air of the EBM/Industrial driven Diseño Corbusier or the drum compositions of Roberto De Simone.

Starting to play live in 2018 they have toured extensively in Europe, sometimes also in a trio format with Jess Webb from Gnod/Anthroprophh at drums. Their latest LP “Ondas Tribales” was released in April 2021 on Mannequin Records and their previous works were out on Kess Kill, BFE Records and Màgia Roja.

“Post-industrial duo Dame Area capture the spirit of Spain’s experimental scene […] Records like Ondas Tribales have much to give beyond the four walls of a venue: it’s thrilling and life-affirming” (Bandcamp Daily feature about Dame Area)

“The revelation of the European underground scene in recent years” (PANM360 Magazine, Montreal)

“Is it primitive rock, voodoo? Is it the return of the 80’s confontrational mind expanding industrial? Or is it simply the next generation of paranoid synth punk like DAF, Throbbing Gristle and Suicide? The thirty minutes of “tribal waves” could become a small phenomenon as only the underground knows how to create them. […] Those who have seen the duo’s live shows on the alternative circuit speak of it as an epiphany.”  (Dame Area feature on Libération, French daily newspaper)

Facebook / Bandcamp / Spotify

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Zozobra

An iconoclast inside the postindustrial mélange. His artistic voice is unique; vunerable and brutal at the same time, his subjects are-at its core-classic: love, identity, relationships. Taking clues from Coil and Nurse With Wound he samples live original sources in the most unadverted ways and creates different layers which he modifies through pedals which serve as backdrop to his lyrics where he digs deep into his most uncomfortable personal truths.

“His voice is an important one, low and heavy, most of the times more speaking than singing, and along with
heavy, industrial rhythms and ditto heavy electronics makes this is all indeed sound like something out of the 80s […] Zozobra plays his industrial music with a similar amount of aggression, ‘con furioso’; a well-orchestrated nightmare.” (Vital Weekly Review)

Zozobra sabe entender el post-industrial exponiendo sus vivencias y perspectivas de una forma fría y directa. Un diario negro escrito con sangre y puntas de agujas rotas. Los siete temas que alberga su primer trabajo se plantearon con la intención de desorientarte dentro de un laberinto sin salida, y han sabido cumplir su objetivo con extrema pulcritud.” (NoMelody Magazine)

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Jochen Arbeit & Huan

Collaboration project of Jochen Arbeit, guitarrist of Einstürzende Neubauten and experimental post-punk band Die Haut with Huan (Viktor Lux Crux, mastermind behind Ordre Etern, Qa’a and sporadic collaborator of Nurse With Wound). Armed with guitars and drum machines they move between epic ascendent passages, ambient, walls of noise and no-wave dissonance to create a new Germanic-Catalan psychedelia.

One track of their EP “Jochen Arbeit & Huan” has been selected and included on The Wire Tapper 36.

“Jochen Arbeit & Huan es la unión de dos genios de la creación” (Programa Audiovisual Japonés, RTVE.es)

“Eruditely and slowly crafted, the guitar led drones build up an entire environment, spookily evocative of a journey into the heart of darkness. The obscured plaintive strains increasingly whine away wildly, landing on some mysterious forbidden planet of alien machinery. It’s minimalism but not as we know it!” (Monolith Cocktail Review)

“Auf den Klang und seine Veränderungen fixierte, tendenziell dröhnende Kompositionen – sagt man ihnen Reichhaltigkeit und Detailfülle nach, so entpuppen sie sich meist als subtile Welten, in denen die kleinen Dinge unter der Oberfläche einer scheinbaren Simplizität versteckt liegen.” (African Paper)

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Jaco

Jaco is one of the most restless artist of the city who hasn’t stopped growing in the last couple of years. Jaco combines the cold of the post-punk and industrial with the warm basses of hip hop. Armed with his knifes, metal pieces, drum machine and samplers he builds a minimalist deep musical background for his enigmatic lyrics, formed by referencies and memories that mix together in an oniric way, creating a unique ambient. 

“Some music makes such neat sense of weird sound that it’s hard to believe it consists of the sounds that make it up in the first place. Jaco’s new album ‘Los Misterios’ – a project 3 years in the making – does this. […] From rattling chains to omnipresent steppers’ booms, this album is a masterclass in textural suspense. You’re not sure if you’re in a dungeon, or a cavern, or a Spaniesh medieval stasis machine.” (Juno Best Albums of the Week)

“Un combinado de sonidos post-industriales, post-punk, dub y bass music, estilos todos ellos que campan a sus anchas, cada uno por un lado, para generar unas texturas inauditas y más propias de una película vanguardista o surrealista que de una canción al uso. […] Si las canciones pop te parecen agotadas y repetitivas, si te cansan las melodías mil veces escuchadas y te apetece aventurarte en un disco cuyas canciones se rompen como cristales, afrontando el peligro de cortarte con ellas, quizás debas darle una oportunidad a este Los Misterios de Jaco.” (Reseña en Muzikalia)

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Futuro de Hierro

Viktor Lux Crux is a key figure in Barcelona’s vibrant post-industrial scene as a musician, producer and co-founder of the label Màgia Roja. He has performed more than 300 shows, almost 200 of them touring abroad in Europe and the US as Futuro de Hierro and with past bands Ordre Etern and Qa’a. Collaborator of Jochen Arbeit (Einstürzende Neubauten), Nurse With Wound, Paddy Shine and Chris Haslam (Gnod), among others he has also been the resident DJ at Màgia Roja venue for the past 5 years.

With Futuro de Hierro he mixes the legacy of Esplendor Geometrico and Throbbing Gristle with the heavyness of Swans or early Laibach and transcends the nihilism of the genere creating a cosmogony of songs where the personal, the esoteric, the present and the future intertwine. His live shows are a visceral and energetic deal, a hands-on approach to electronic music with an unseen control of rythmic feedback, dynamics and noise. His music has been released in Enfant Terrible/ Gooiland Elektro, Opal Tapes and Màgia Roja.

“Los fans de Esplendor Geométrico, Throbbing Gristle, Dive o Portion Control, disfrutarán de los cuatro temas que propone el artista con sede en Barcelona y residente de Màgia Roja en los que traza una fina línea entre la sutileza y la corrosión y donde ruidos y feedbacks, a primera vista casuales, evolucionan en secuencias hipnóticas que se tornan canciones”. (Reseña en Clubbingspain)

“The rhythm is mechanical, feeding through synthesizers and on top of that Crux delivers his vocals, sung, spoken and shouting, along with a fair amount of feedback. Just as, I guess, Esplendor Geometrico once did in their earliest days. Monotonous, loud, noisy and aggressive.” (Vital Weekly Review)

” A industrial burn of visceral collaterals, crowing feedbacks. He’d quickly sculpt a chiselled beatbox into a rhythmic ransom of disjointed disforia, slash /oblique the scenery brilliantly, pinchering in the odd paramilitary jackboot, slicing in a dynamic silence to floodgate the senses seconds later in skidding frictions and torqued talon.” (Live Review on Freq.org)

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Cassandra Dada

Magia Roja’s chief designer (Bruxelles 1993) didn’t have time to finish her studies and she was already designing for us. Her design is influenced by Timothy Wyllie, the occultist symbolism, pop art, the aesthetics of underground posters from the 70’s-80’s and the old book covers. Her designs suggest in a lateral way the complex message which an event represents, apropiating herself from classical works to internet trash and working frequently with Leon Ka materials. The simplicity of her combinations transmits the idea of a possible and pragmatical utopia. She has done posters for shows of Embryo, Gnod, Consumer Electronics, Jochen Arbeit, Burial Hex, Putan Club…,between many others, and numerous designs from our own releases.

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Caramuerto

Starting as a de facto studio project his songs have slowly matured, in cassettes and limited editions, until reaching a new level with the edition of his first LP “Humo y Espejos”, which has been released on early 2018. As his live shows have multiplied he has perfected a language that bastardizes the legacy of Birthday Party and the No Wave with the deconstructed noise-rock of Sightings on top of rythms with an industrial but heterodox flavor. On top of this he spits lyrics who intertwine the personal with the surreal and that often reference to a sometimes blurry, longed or traumatic past.

Caramuerto es como una explosión en un convento: impactante, morbosa y estéticamente atractiva. […] Humo y Espejos es indudablemente una carta ganadora que se desliza sobre el plato declarando profesionalidad y originalidad a partes iguales. (NoMelody Magazine)

“Entre noise expé, musique industrielle, electro sauvage et rock extrême, Caramuerto se débat dans une camisole de fièvre avec une guitare sonnant comme du verre brisé (Big Black aurait adoré) et des machines/rythmes qui électrocutent. Le tout avec une science de la perversion, du silence et de la mise sous tension qui déstabilise et rend dingue à l’instar du chant en espagnol sachant très bien faire vibrer la folie dans ses cordes vocales même si le panel est large.” (Perte&Fracas)

Facebook / Bandcamp

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Akauzazte

Akauzazte are the last secret band in Europe. From their H.Q. at the Azkoitia abandonned abbatoir (Matadeixen) over the last twenty years they’ve always taken their time to perfect their records, their discography is vast, and they’ve evolved their sound in each one taken risks which few “sacred cows” would take.

Between the industrial tribalism of Missing Foundation, the crushing force of early Swans (not in vain their rhythmic section is comprised of two drums and two basses) and their own deconstructed version of black metal or power electronics. Most bands in industrial/noise music scenes are markedly urban, Akauzazte on the other hand sound rural, ritualistic and mystical. An oasis of ritual psychedelia and basque industrial “folk” with ancient horn instruments and deteriorated and destroyed guitars that sound as though their amplifiers are about to explode.

“Birthday Party, Einsturzende Neubauten y especialmente los Swans son algunos de los nombres que se han mencionado para tratar de referenciar el majestuoso sonido de esta banda. Todos apropiados, todos limitados también. No hay verdaderos antecedentes, Akauzazte es un ente autónomo que se rige bajo sus propias reglas. […] Creo que fue Anari quien dijo que si las piedras de nuestros bosques pudieran hablar, sonarían como la música de Akauzazte” (TIUMag)

“Incantation style vocals waft or fill the horizon in suffused spookiness, as every instrument and found object (the imagination shudders) from the factory is used to produce an unnerving black metal/industrial rural soundscape. Not always heavy and knocking on damnations door, odd references of straight laced Teutonic pop, the dead Skeletons, Amon Düül II, Psychic TV and the Velvets appear liberally throughout.” (Monolith Cocktail Review)

 “No creo que sea una buena idea describir la música de Akauzazte. Como si fueran los únicos intérpretes de una sabiduría arcana acumulada en las rocas del País Vasco, parece proceder de otro tiempo y de otra dimensión. Los Akauzazte se describen como poderosos y magistrales en su arte, como los grandes grupos que han sabido combinar el ruido sucio del industrialismo con el trance de la psicodelia (los viejos y eternos Swans o los actuales Gnod, por citar algunos).”  (Entzun.eus)

Wikipedia / Website / Bandcamp

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Ca de Bestiar

These are the bastard sons of Liasons Dangerouses, Esplendor Geometrico, Parálisis Permanente, Suicide and The Fall. Like a chance meeting between synth punk and rhythmic noise making love on top of a dissecting table. They deconstruct punk and recombine its elements into weapon of mass dancing.

“The industrial, electro-punk sound from Spanish duo Ca de Bestiar, based out of Barcelona, is defined by an energetic heady mix of ceaseless, stabbing, metallic industrial rhythms, modern heavy digital electronics, sinister and obscure post-punk, and unnerving nihilistic synth minimalism over vocal distortions […]” (Whitelight-Whiteheat.com)

“Ca de Bestiar es una formación que surge en Barcelona con la intención de fusionar ruido desbocado con ritmos pegadizos y abrasivos. Tras una demo de presentación, su primer trabajo, “Chicos salvajes, sorprende por su incontrolable energía subversiva. Una interesante forma de entender el post-punk.” (Mondosonoro)

“La banda está concebida para sonar en directo, para que la gente salte y baile como la tribu que danza al son de los tambores alrededor de la hoguera. Su música consiste en la repetición y la estridencia, cuya pretensión es generar un trance agresivo, nocturno y animal. Una propuesta novedosa en la que se se combinan elementos eclécticos, estilos diversos, actitud punk y sonido industrial, electrónica y gritos.” (Noesfm.com)

Collectivo La Maquina / Bandcamp