On September 10^th I headed to Peru for a week. While there I made it a point to visit Galerias Brasil.  This was the place where I spent countless hours as a teenager, hanging out, drinking and learning about obscure and extreme music.  Located only a few minutes form downtown Lima, Galerias Brasil is a narrow three-story building that on the outside looks as if it has been ravaged by a hurricane.  Its bleak and tiny hallways are filled with small computer shops, video game stores, empty spaces and music shops the likes of which have been satiating the thirst of underground rock fanatics for over a decade and a half.   Most of the music shops focus on metal, covering absolutely every sub genre.  But there are others too. At Galerias Brasil you can find the rarest and most obscure of releases for about $1.50. Granted, what you get is a burned CD and not the $15 original, but who cares?  I was hungry for music.

Walking around the metal stores nothing caught my attention. I walked upped and down the somber hallways of the first two floors a couple of times before an album cover got my attention; Paralisis Permanente’s Singles y Primeras Grabaciones features a black and white photo of vocalist guitarist Eduardo Benavente sitting on a chair with sprawled legs from the knee down.  I think it was also the name of the band and the gothic font as logo that attracted me to it. This particular store specialized on Rock en Español, and by that this old school clerk (80’s new wave hairdo and all) does not mean fucking Mana. With a heavy emphasis on the post-punk and hardcore 80’s wave of Spanish releases I had found a place where I’d spend most of my time and money.  Paralisis Permanente was formed in Madrid in 1981 by Benavente and bassist Nacho Canut, both of whom had been playing together in Alaska y Los Pegamoides. With the addition of two more members this project had a sinister edge, a morbid aura and a more aggressive sound that drips of English goth rock and at times direct 70’s punk rock. Singles y Primeras Grabaciones (Singles & First Recordings) was released in 1995 by the famed Spanish label Dro and as its title implies it compiles the band’s earliest works along with its singles. The sound varies but the quality is even; dark tracks that revolve around low basslines, clean and high-pitched guitars, basic creepy keyboard work and Benavente’s non-chalant delivery (think early The Cure and Bauhaus) are intercalated between more straight ahead punk rock numbers with a pungent sense for the morbid. What I heard at the shop turned me on, so I dug a little deeper.

El Acto is Paralisis Permanente’s first full-length following 1981’s Autosuficiencia EP split with Gabinete Caligari and 1982’s Quiero Ser Santa EP.   Released in 1982 El Acto shows the band in full goth mode; the production is heavy on the drums with clean guitars usually serving as ringers and Benavente’s clean delivery. If there is something that would differentiate his approach from the rest of post-punkers and goth rockers of the time it would be his flat delivery. Lookwise Paralisis Permanente was going for a strike, and musically its eloquence is always downplayed by Benavente’s almost deadpan approach. As a nod to its masters El Acto features a cover of David Bowie’s “Heroes” and The Stooges “I Wanna Be Your Dog” (“Quiero Ser Tu Perro”). Wisely, Paralisis Permanente adapts the songs to their post-punk of choice, offering a very basic and almost one-note cover of the first one and a less radical and aggressive take on the latter. Sadly, the following year (1983) would mark the end of the band; while on the way to a show in Zaragoza the car in which the band traveled had an accident. Benavente, who was only twenty years old, died instantly.

Alright, so at this time I am salivating for more Spanish post-punk. For a while I thought I had tapped onto all the overlooked and underrated bands of the planet, but this store offered a whole new pool from where to draw quality music from. Next band the clerk suggested; Madrid’s Decima Victima.(pictured above)  Formed in 1981 by two Swedes and two Spaniards Decima Victima is largely credited for being one of the first bands to start up this dark wave of Spanish post-punk, or as is commonly referred to on texts relating to this band ‘after-punk’. Sparse as fuck, haunting as shit, dense as a Sabato book and at times absolutely brilliant, the band’s self-titled debut is an excellent display of depressive sad post-punk a la Joy Division and early The Cure. Decima Victima formed from the ashes of two well-humored pop bands; Ejecutivos Agresivos (Aggressive Executives) and Ella y Los Neumáticos (She and The Tires) around 1980.  Following two EP’s Decima Victima releases its first LP featuring twelve atmospheric tracks of calmed and claustrophobic nature. According to the clerk, this debut has not been released on CD, so in my copy you can clearly hear the intimate contact sounds of needle and vinyl.   

Following rumors of the band’s dissolution, Decima Victima releases Un Hombre Solo (A Lonely Man) in 1984. With a richer sound, more elaborate instrumentation and a sense of melody that not because of that is less somber than its predecessor Un Hombre Solo is another display of reverential post-punk. Opening cut “Sobre Otra Ruta” is a masterful cut that centers around a hanging bassline, echoing guitars and a clear lyrical sense of dread. The title cut follows the same path, the band seems to have found a new angle, without losing most of its original soul, the guitars in “Un Hombre Solo” are more aggressive and edgy.  Soon after this release, Decima Victima dissolves after the Mertanen brothers (the Swedish half) move away from Spain.  

At this point I am on a roll and there is no stopping me. Not even the flu that was quickly spreading through my nose and throat could. The earthquake from the day before had shaken us all, but our insatiable hunger for music knows no scare. Polansky y El Ardor’s Chantaje Emocional  is another slab of solid post-punk and pop with the appropriate addition of a saxophone. Formed in 1981, this Madrid quartet pays homage to the Rosemary’s Baby’s director through its moniker and in 1982 after winning a rock contest sign a deal with multinational Ariola. Chantaje Emocional was released in 1983 and is a far less somber deal than the two previous bands. Classics like “Ataque Preventivo de la URSS” and “Negra” are far too joyful and humorous to fit solely under the post-punk shadow yet the album has its somber cuts. Polansky y El Ardor is not content with the recording and soon after breaks up.  

I had read about the following band in the vanished Peruvian magazine Esquina when I was like eight years old but I had never heard their music.  Kortatu was formed in 1984 and played a ska punk hybrid. The band hailed from Basque country and was part of ‘el rock radical vasco’, (Radical Basque Rock); a left wing nationalistic punk movement that saw in bands like Cicatriz, La Polla Records and Eskorbuto as its biggest representatives. Kortatu’s first self-titled full-length release is at times a bit too much on the party side to be taken too seriously, especially with lyrics like, ‘dispara, un gringo en tu casa’ (‘shoot, there is a gringo in your home’), but who knows? Politics in rock are one more topic to deal with. As for their validity and utility, go figure, rock music can’t stop or start a war. Kortatu was a band definitely molded after The Clash, they even cover “Jimmy Jazz”, but basically all they did was translate the lyrics to Spanish and played the track to a T.  Kortatu is more effective when attacking the music from a purely punk angle; “Zu Atrapatu Arte” is great with lyrics in Vasque or Euskera (whatever you prefer), it sounds like Spanish, except I can’t understand what they are saying. The band broke up in 1988 and from its ashes the highly successful Negu Gorriak was birthed.

Also hailing from Madrid are the trio named Gabinete Caligari. Formed in 1981 Gabinete Caligari was, like Paralisis Permanent, also heavily influenced by British post-punk and had ex-members of Ella y Los Neumaticos and Ejecutivos Agresivos. The band’s career spanned eighteen years, eight full lengths, two compilations and several singles.   Gabinete’s Caligari’s sound morphed with time; initially tackling a style that mixed rock with Spanish folk the band would also pass through a purely post-punk sound.  To the clerk’s recommendation I got the compilation of their 1983 debut Que Dios Reparta Suerte and its immediate follow up 1984’s Cuatro Rosas.  This compilation opens up with the title track from Cuatro Rosas, if I tell you that its too pop minded and light for my taste is an understatement. Gabinete Caligari rectifies itself quickly though, “Tango” has a deliciously twangy guitar sound that’s almost rockabilly, flamenco and goth rock all in one.  The rest follows suit, there is an air of darkness invading this band’s music, yet the production, the clean and easy choruses, the whole formula really, also present a band welcoming a pop sound.  In contrast the material that belongs to Que Dios Reparta Suerte is more aggressive, punkier, still twangy and, still, pop peeks in and out from track to track. Gabinete Caligari were for a time an immensely popular band in Latin America. Their music wasn’t really played on the radio and as far as I know they didn’t break any records in sales or even made it onto the radio charts, but for those who dug the sounds of 80’s Spain’s rock, this band was fundamental. 

To finish things off the clerk suggested I get Gabinete’s 1993’s compilation Sombras Negras, which was a bit of a rip off as it contains plenty of songs from Que Dios Reparta Suerte. I didn’t know it then, I know it now and it pisses me off. Regardless, this is the only album from Gabinete Caligari I should have gotten.   Things come to an intriguing start, “Como Perdimos Berlin” (“How We Lost Berlin”) has been tagged as neo-nazi, but is too lethargic to recruit dumbasses. Besides this was a band that during its beginnings had a penchant for provoking.  “Olor a Carne Quemada” (“Smell of Burned Flesh”) is pure post-punk, the perfect display of a darker sound that the band could have banked on instead of exercising all its pop needs.  “Maquis” follows suit, deep basslines carve wells on the driest of soils, flashing guitars restrict themselves and a voice that stands somewhere between androgyny and a real chick.  In 1987 Gabinete releases their most successful album Camino Soria.  Following the poor reception given to 1995’s Gabinetissimo and 1998 Subid La Musica the band dissolves.

Tales From the Cutout Bin V