{"title":"LA Castanya","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLa Castanya is a record label and show promoter based in Barcelona, Spain. With a focus on independent music, La Castanya has been an influential force in the Spanish music scene since its establishment. The label prides itself on discovering and nurturing talented artists, providing them with a platform to showcase their unique sound.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eKnown for its diverse roster of *artists*, La Castanya has consistently released high-quality albums across various genres including indie rock, folk, and experimental music. The label's dedication to supporting emerging talent has led to the discovery of some of Spain's most exciting musicians.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn addition to releasing records, La Castanya also organizes live shows and events throughout Barcelona. These performances offer fans the opportunity to experience the energy and creativity of *performers* from the label firsthand. From intimate club gigs to larger-scale festivals, La Castanya continues to curate memorable live experiences for music lovers.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"todavia-no","title":"Todavia No","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn \u003ci\u003eUna idea, pero es triste\u003c\/i\u003e, their celebrated debut EP, La Paloma expounded something very serious, but they explained it only once. Five songs that instantly connected with an audience eager for new references. In \u003ci\u003eTodavía no\u003c\/i\u003e there is more depth; here practically each cut shows a different shade of being La Paloma. “Tiré una piedra al aire” is far from “Algo ha cambiado”, but both are unequivocally La Paloma. Surely, this is something that can be attributed to the baggage acquired during this time lapse, but it certainly speaks very well of the artistic ambition of a band to which now seems to have no ceiling.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWe are not, therefore, facing a mere extension of their 2021 EP, although musically they pick it up from where they left off. \u003ci\u003eTodavía no\u003c\/i\u003e is an accessible and contagious work, equal qualities shared with \u003ci\u003eUna idea, pero es triste\u003c\/i\u003e. It’s a work that conveys discontent and liberation, ambition and boredom. In large part, it’s due to the accredited ability of its composers Nico Yubero and Lucas Sierra to observe the world with the right dose of skepticism and disappointment, avoiding tormented gesticulation.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eTodavía no\u003c\/i\u003e is a tightly cohesive album, a remarkable fact considering the two creative inputs from which the band draws from and the artistic ambition with which they faced the building of this work. Because we are talking about a complete work, conceived as such. The first chords of “Sigo aquí” sound and the disorganization of reality… is still disorganized, but somehow it makes sense now.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"LA Castanya","offers":[{"title":"Black LP","offer_id":50419143246155,"sku":"2170038","price":21.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"White LP","offer_id":50419144819019,"sku":"2171480","price":24.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"CD","offer_id":50419143835979,"sku":"2170039","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/LC88_dca000aa_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1726746050"},{"product_id":"just-calm-down","title":"Just Calm Down","description":"\u003cp\u003eYawners is the band of guitarist and songwriter Elena Nieto, a project based in Madrid and currently shaped as a duo with the help of Martín Muñoz on drums. Right after forming Yawners, Nieto started self-releasing her songs and booking her tours with a DIY philosophy. \u003ci\u003eJust Calm Down\u003c\/i\u003e, the band’s debut LP is released by La Castanya. In the album, Nieto explores the pop side of the energetic 90s sound, a vibe that instantly brings you back to classic bands like Weezer, Pavement and The Breeders and connects to contemporary bands like Japandroids, Snail Mail or Waxahatchee. This is a record bursting with tightly produced, perfectly composed, hooky, smart, angsty, bright power pop. Each track hits around the three minute mark, ebbs and soars with choruses that catch, and is an absolutejoy to press play on.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"LA Castanya","offers":[{"title":"Black | LP","offer_id":50463715623243,"sku":"1061799","price":22.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"CD","offer_id":50463716868427,"sku":"1061798","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/18dc5972-85ee-40a6-9013-0b4b29989ca5_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727265916"},{"product_id":"secret-place","title":"Secret Place","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe Zephyr Bones\u003c\/strong\u003e’ hazy, melodic, psychedelic rock flickers with memories that span the distance between their native Chile and their current home of Barcelona. \"\u003cem\u003eSecret Place\u003c\/em\u003e\" synthesizes their guitar-oriented dream pop into their own unique brand of beach wave.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe Zephyr Bones\u003c\/strong\u003e’ hazy, melodic, psychedelic rock flickers with memories that span the distance that separates the native Chile of guitarists and vocalists Brian Silva and Jossip Tkalcic, and the band’s current base in Barcelona, Spain – which is also home to rhythm section, Marc López and Carlos Ramos. The songs on their debut album, \u003cem\u003eSecret Place\u003c\/em\u003e, share something very intimate and invite the listener to travel to their own secret places, filled with dreams and promises, hidden away from the hectic world and these troubling times. \u003cem\u003eSecret Place\u003c\/em\u003e synthesizes \u003cstrong\u003eThe Zephyr Bones\u003c\/strong\u003e’ guitar-oriented dream pop—which they have christened “beach wave”— recorded in their own Eclectic Echo Lab studio in Barcelona, and mastered by Victor Garcia.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe Zephyr Bones\u003c\/strong\u003e emerged in 2015 with their debut EP, \u003cem\u003eWishes\/Fishes\u003c\/em\u003e, on Spanish label La Castanya, earning them a showcase at Barcelona’s famed Primavera Sound. The video for “Weird Summer” was debuted via Noisey who called it, “hazy pop vibes like a hit of serotonin.” The band returned in 2016 with the \u003cem\u003eBlack Lips\/Surrounded By Sunflowers\u003c\/em\u003e 7” single, co-released worldwide between the New York label Other Music Recording Co. and La Castanya. DIY magazine featured \u003cstrong\u003eThe Zephyr Bones\u003c\/strong\u003e in a story on the Spanish underground rock scene, alongside Hinds and MOURN. In the past year the band have become a go-to support act for artists coming through Spain including Future Islands and Boogarins.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe Zephyr Bones\u003c\/strong\u003e might reside in Barcelona but the songs on \u003cem\u003eSecret Place\u003c\/em\u003e span the galaxy. The single “Juglar Child on the Carousel” is set on Mars, “Las Olas” on Neptune, and “September” is left to roast on the sun. Then again, “I’ve Lost My Dinosaur” seems to be set in a delirious dream state all of its own. The album opener “Hurricanes” sets the mood with the line, “your eyes on the sunset”, heading to an innocent place to escape the world and listen to the gentle whispering psychedelia. “Telephone” tells of a long distance love affair, while “Penny’s Week” is about fleeing from a relationship, spending a week skateboarding and messing around. Caught between suspense and narcosis, \u003cstrong\u003eThe Zephyr Bones\u003c\/strong\u003e provide the coordinates to their favorite place. It’s not the place itself that is important but that it should be kept personal —it should be your own secret place, which can be anywhere, physical or non-physical— a place or a feeling that is kept close to heart. It could be special memories of love – with partners or friends, separated by bed sheets, miles or light years. All these are stored in the tracks on \u003cem\u003eSecret Place\u003c\/em\u003e, whether you hear them on Venus, Pluto, the Pacific, the Mediterranean coast, looking out at the sea from Chile, Barcelona, or your living room. Play the record and meet the band there.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"LA Castanya","offers":[{"title":"LP","offer_id":50471503921483,"sku":"1019441","price":22.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"CD","offer_id":50471504150859,"sku":"1019442","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/3c704a09-3370-4827-a1a4-3578154eb17a_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727404814"},{"product_id":"sultans-of-sentiment","title":"Sultans of Sentiment","description":"\u003cp\u003e90s NYC indie heroes The Van Pelt have had a lasting power far greater than so many of the other once bigger bands of that era have had. The sort of interest that has neither waxed nor waned over the decades since they disbanded, yet just mysteriously continues on despite their discography being out of print since the end of the last millennium. So what is it that sets them apart? Too soft to have ran with the AmRep or Touch and Go crowds, not hip enough to have made sense on Matador or Merge, ernest yet not histrionic enough to make it onto the “best emo bands” lists, not weird enough to be on bills with Arto Lindsay and Thurston Moore, etc. In a sense, their outsider status comes not from the wings, but from the dead center eye of the storm. The 90s were happening all around them, they were witnesses thereof, yet they emerged transcendent of it all. You Follow? Barcelona’s La Castanya records is treating us with the first ever rerelease of the two Van Pelt albums to mark the 20th anniversary of \u003ci\u003eSultans of Sentiment\u003c\/i\u003e, their benchmark album. They teased us in 2014 that this might be on the docket with the release of Imaginary Third, a collection of singles and unreleased Van Pelt tracks which were originally intended to have been the components of their third album, including the alt-famous \u003ci\u003eSpeeding Train\u003c\/i\u003e. Now we’ll finally have access to their entire discography. The first album, \u003ci\u003eStealing From Our Favorite Thieves\u003c\/i\u003e is an explosion of anthems belted out as if the war was already lost yet they were hoisting that tattered banner anyhow until there wasn’t a shred to salvage. The momentum coming out of that album had every major label in the States salivating at the possibility of turning them into the next Nirvana. Instead, The Van Pelt followed it up by pulling the van into the garage, leaving the engine running, funneling the exhaust into their lungs, and blissfully deciding to bow out of the race with the epic \u003ci\u003eSultans of Sentiment.\u003c\/i\u003e Of course as the story goes, their intended financial flop was the exact opus that jettisoned them into the history books. Buy both albums. You’ll need them both.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"LA Castanya","offers":[{"title":"Green | LP","offer_id":50481787666763,"sku":"2004064","price":23.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/f18b3eb4-ec88-4d96-918e-e0c244a47f2a_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727544798"},{"product_id":"fe-2","title":"Fe","description":"\u003cp\u003eLas Palabras is the solo project of New Yorker Rafael Cohen, of Mexican roots and member of !!! (Chk Chk Chk).\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eFe\u003c\/i\u003e, [Faith] his second Las Palabras album, and first on the Barcelona label La Castanya, “deals with what it means to have faith, what it means to have doubts, and what it means to stay open to the idea that something untouchable and unknowable may exist”.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWritten and produced by Cohen in his home studio in Brooklyn and mixed by Black Pumas guitarist Adrian Quesada, \u003ci\u003eFe \u003c\/i\u003ebuilds on nylon-string guitar and electric bass with live drums and synthesizers in songs that embrace elements of 70s Brazilian funk and an amalgam of beats from hip hop to bachata, interspersed with contemplative ballads on which Cohen’s voice and guitar can be quiet enough to hear the rumble of a bus going by in the background. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eFe\u003c\/i\u003e is coloured by musical influences that include those Brazilian grooves, but also shades of Sade, Sounds of Blackness and eighties electro funk group Zapp. The arrangements spotlight the rhythm section, with drums played by Chris Egan (!!!, Solange, Blood Orange) and featuring Alberto Lopez (LCD Soundsystem, Stanley Clarke) on percussion. Cohen credits Adrian Quesada for the album’s warm, worn-in tone: “He made the beats sound a lot bigger and gave it an ’80s hip hop feel. He really understood the references and brought his background in Latin music to it”.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"LA Castanya","offers":[{"title":"Black LP","offer_id":50753031274827,"sku":"2231207","price":22.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"White LP","offer_id":50753031995723,"sku":"2231208","price":24.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"CD","offer_id":50753030750539,"sku":"2231206","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/de27635c266b47d09e60905502d41719_0433e779_f9cf_45b2_825_5719bbf0_thumbnail.jpg?v=1732685458"},{"product_id":"the-word","title":"The Word","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe Jay Vons\u003c\/strong\u003e have toured all through the United States and internationally, opening for such legends as Sharon Jones and The Dap-Kings, Charles Bradley \u0026amp; The Extraordinaires, Lee Fields \u0026amp; The Expressions; recorded all of their original tracks at Daptone Studios, Dunham Sound Studios, and Diamond Mine Studios with producers Wayne Gordon and Tommy Brenneck; and, while making a name for themselves, have been backing up Greg Cartwright as Reigning Sound.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe lead single, \"\u003cem\u003eThe Word\u003c\/em\u003e,\" is a veritable blueprint for The Jay Vons’ sound: spooky organ, undeniable groove, tasteful guitar, forlorn lyrics, all seasoned generously with handclaps and percussion. Just imagine if The Brothers of Soul (Bridges, Knight, Eaton) produced a session by The Young Rascals and you’re getting warm.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\"\u003cem\u003eNight (Was Stealing from the Sun)\u003c\/em\u003e\" picks up the tempo with a fervor reminiscent of The Jam at their best — punchy drums and sweet harmonies transform this earnest tale of a misaligned affection into a dance-friendly feast for the soul.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\"\u003cem\u003eChanging Seasons\u003c\/em\u003e\" finds the band dialing it back a bit, settling into a breezy, mid-tempo groove. The string arrangement and soft, pleading vocal give way to an explosive, anthemic chorus whose hook-heavy horn line enriches the melody, creating a perfect piece of mid-sixties pop.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eOther highlights include: the gorgeous ballad, \"\u003cem\u003eNever Take Me Back\u003c\/em\u003e\"; the full-throttle assault of \"\u003cem\u003eKeep On Moving\u003c\/em\u003e\"; and the flute-kissed hit \"\u003cem\u003eDid You See Her\u003c\/em\u003e.\" This album is an exercise in how to channel the past without ever being trite. This is no facsimile. 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