The Lacking Permanence

Americana with a punk-ass louche attitude always makes for a good bawdy time.

Shrugging through the rose thorns, protected by a heavy leather apron, the blacksmith adjusted the thick gloves, proof against stray hammers and cinders but well-worn enough to allow the gentlest of movements. A stem was carefully pincered and brought in view of the entomologist’s face, who scanned it for aphids. Across Sarmiento Park, a teen herd’s boombox gave voice to an excited Córdoban DJ, announcing the latest from the latin bhangra scene. A traffic cop was nosing around their parked Alfa Romeo, assuming it was just another family sedan that forgot to feed the meter.

It’s an old recipe but it never fails: Mix some high-energy guitar rock, the kind with chuggy riffs, and put a female voice strong enough to withstand the maelstrom on top.

This is kept stripped-down and acerbic, completely aligned with the band’s original punk-folk ethic.

WIth their minimalist riffing, straight ahead drumming, and disaffected vocals, this band sounds so much like Parquet Courts I had to check that it wasn’t a side project

The parade stretched through the downtown area, its colorful participants a completely normal distribution of small-town denizens. The statistician knew otherwise. They stood waving from the platform of the float, their flysuits carefully integrated with the diorama to give the appearance of animated mechanical humans. All they needed to do was get within twenty feet of The Mayor, and the technology built into the platform would do the rest. The imagineer adjusted the EQ on the float’s sound system, giving the Estonian techno which poured from the speakers more high-end sparkle. The crowd reacted favorably, some of them breaking out into dance.

Straight up garage-billy from Spain, filled with surf rock, psychedelic, and British Invasion references. The vocals are in Spanish, but the bad bad attitude is unmistakable.

Electronic drums, layers and filigrees of keyboards, and falsetto choruses make for some glossy synthesizer soul music that wouldn’t be out of place on a late Eighties dance floor.

It’s indie pop, but it’s also heavily inflected with soul, country, R&B, western swing, and a bad attitude.

The baker took one last look at the cake, sitting on its gold-rimmed stand on the veranda, the carefully cultivated gardens surrounding the Palacio Rioja visible in the background. If it weren’t for the two backpack stealthcopters leaning against the railing, it would be Instagrammable, hashtag noneofyourbusiness. The architect finished the final touches, and gave a silent nod. In a smooth motion, the two of them had their packs on and had plummeted over the edge, carefully angling away to not disturb the icing.