Things are on fire in this incipient spring that March brings. With the flowering and the mid-season (whatever that is in the 21st century), the March concerts in Madrid intensify and the great promises of the year arrive. We see it with the sold outs of The Divine Comedy, Suede, Hans Zimmer, the two dates of pablopablo or the four of Rosalía. We also see it in artists who choose Madrid as a city to present their albums, as the end of their tour or as a stop-over. In March there are minimalist concerts, electronic music, southern sounds and even comebacks that will take us back to the cocktail bars of 2005. Let’s go.
Herman Düne was trapped (like so many people) in a place far from home during the pandemic. Rather, a non-place: a hotel in Montreal. From there he began to write and compose about the sadness and homesickness of being away from home, his life partner and his three cats. The result is this album, Odysseús, a folk-pop work that despite speaking of distance and homesickness, is a warm and relaxed embrace.
Tei Shi has a sublime vocal capacity, pop rhythms full of references to the folklore of her roots (ranging from Colombia to Canada, the country where she grew up), a dark point and electronic bases. She distances herself from mainstream pop to embrace the alternative while creating her own soundscapes that belong only to her.
From Brazil with an elegant, sweet guitar rock. The concert on March 2 will be a melodious stroll through their latest album, Nenhuma Estrela ( fifth album in their career).
The Kooks (March 4)
Tickets: from 50€ and up
I’m not saying it’s your fault, Although you could have done more, Oh you’re so naive yet so… The Kooks is the sound of a very specific moment: the first decade of the 21st century. Light guitars, catchy melodies, emotive choruses and a casual look between Brit and rock. Now, they are back. They will do it at La Riviera and, hopefully, they will play everything that made the soundtrack of 2005 and 2006 so unique and defined.
Depresión Sonora (March 5)
Tickets: from 24,25€.
Marcos Crespo was born in Vallecas. This marks part of the creative process of his lyrics and melodies: the suburbs, the vital maelstrom of the twenty-something, the boredom and the reflection on hyperproductivity? Everything comes together in touches of post-punk and accelerated synths that, on the other hand, sing of deceleration.
The fact that their presentation of the new album will take place at the Wurlitzer is no coincidence: Humour are rowdy, loud, extreme live acts. In their latest creation Learning Greek, besides connecting the singer with his Hellenic roots, they release everything they have inside in the form of post-hardcore, some screamo and even grunge. And the Madrilenians know it: in the Wurli, even if it doesn’t sound better, it always sounds more authentic.
Tash Sultana’s intense international tour is called Return to the Roots: a return to the origin, to what made her jump from home videos in her room recorded for YouTube to the biggest stages around the world. The Australian multi-instrumentalist never left aside psychedelia, reggae, R&B and electronica. And in that fusion she finds her home. And we our home.
The Psychedelic Porn Crumpets are going all out: they have produced not only one album, but two, Carpe Diem, Moonman and Pogo Rodeo. They will present this creative boom through some Spanish cities and festivals (they will also play at the Azkena Rock Festival). The Australians started as “just another” indie band to become representatives of the genre in their country.
O’Flynn has been blessed by the greats of electronica: Ben UFO, Gilles Peterson, Four Tet or Floating Points. This blessing says a lot. But the electronic live at the Clamores, which promises to be pure dynamite on the dancefloor, will say much more.
The Norwegian hard rock band Gluecifer decided to take a break… in 2005. Twenty-one years later here they are again, back on stage in an intense tour to present Same Drug New High (same drug, but different high). They define their rock as “hyperlocal” and short-range, as they dedicate it to the city where they were born, Oslo. But, for whatever reason, it continues to reach far beyond the Norwegian capital even more than two decades later.
How to sustain a band when the four members live in places as different as London, New York, Melbourne and Wellington? With tenacity, synth pop, noise and transoceanic rehearsals. Yumi Zouma are noise done right (because as noise and shoegaze lovers will know, you have to know how to make noise, not everything goes). In this live show they will present their new album, No Love Lost to Kindness.
Should we let ourselves be carried away by first impressions? In the case of Robert Jon & The Wreck, yes. It’s southern flavor, it’s dense, folky California, it’s electric guitar and soaring southern rock. It’s the deep voice, it’s the cowboy boot, it’s the gaucho tie.
Tickets: from 19€ and up
Nacho Vigalondo and Los Javis had to come to put us in our place, to elevate the figure of Tamara-Ámbar-Yurena. To remember that we have all been there, in the eye of the most devastating hurricane, in one way or another. They had to come to vindicate an artist who did not stop working even when the world, her world, was against her, ridiculing, mistreating, in prime time. Now is her moment. Yurena: the concert that never was, is the concert that will be and that will try to give her, at least for an hour, the deserved recognition.
A string quartet will perform great classical music scores (such as The Four Seasons by Vivaldi; The Swan, by Camille Saint-Saëns; or Swan Lake by Tchaikovsky), with more than 5000 thousand candles at their feet and a thousand drones in the sky.
Biznaga (March 27 and 28)
Tickets: from 22,25€.
What Biznaga have done with their latest albums is the protest song of the 21st century. Maybe we exaggerate but there is something in El Entusiasmo or La Gran Renuncia ( for example) that appeals to everything that happens to us and calls for action. Not in vain, they were in charge of providing the soundtrack to the action of the neighbors of Tribulete, 7, coerced and threatened by a vulture fund. More Biznaga, less vultures.