Hooves on the Turf

Allá gets a taste of New York, photos

Download “Una Dia Otra Noche” | Playing  a first show in New York from a little-known record must be nerve-wracking, but when it’s an early show at Joe’s Pub on a Tuesday night, I suppose it’s going to be extra rough; especially when the tickets are priced at $15 a piece, without any supporting acts or acts to support. But that’s how it goes at Joe’s Pub, and though the room was mostly bare except for supportive friends and possibly a few fans, Allá’s performance was pretty solid. However, despite seven years of labor over El Tiempo and the technical proficiency they showed last night, the band hasn’t quite probed into its heart to pull out a bloody bunny yet. Continue after the jump.

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"Mexican Mutantes"

Download “Una Dia Otra Noche” | Allá is playing Joe’s Pub tomorrow, the 8th of June, and I’m looking forward to a six-piece treatment of the band’s polished on-record sound. From that performance I hope to conclude whether or not the Os Mutantes comparisons are fit, since from solely listening to the record, the similarity isn’t apparent to me at all; if anything, in Lupe Martinez’s voice I hear textual rhythms similar to that in older Juana Molina songs. An article in the Chicago Reader asserts:

Any Os Mutantes comparisons are well deserved—both groups get real far-out but still come off tropical-drink breezy—but Allá’s palette might be even broader, including bits of everything from Krautrock to hip-hop.

An earlier paragraph does a better job, read it after the jump:

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