Penetraciòn Còsmica-Vol.1 (2010)

Penetraciòn Còsmica-Vol.1 (2010)

“La desesperación es la materia prima del cambio drástico, sólo aquellos que pueden dejar atrás todo en lo que han creído, pueden tener la esperanza de escapar”

William S. Burroughs   

Still in my mind, this is one of the greatest, truly independent recordings made, left alone in my country, ¡In my hometown!, their sound definitely “penetrates” inside ones inner consciousness and brings to mind the cosmic sound of disparate things like Miles Davis, the space explorations of Ash Ra Tempel or the fucked up fury of Penetration by the Stooges, perhaps the contemporary sound of The Skaters of James Ferraro might be a very close reference, but the explorations by The Skaters were never this intense, so the name Penetración Cósmica (Cosmic Penetration), might be very well applied to these Mexican kids making high caliber free form music full of reverb and delay, but while The Skaters live to bring back the eighties and the so called “hypnagogic pop”, Penetración Cósmica doesn’t sound so possessed by the spirit it of the eighties, as some punkish attitude comes in and psychedelic treatments and tribal passages appear here and there talking more about bringing some of the old German school of kosmische along something else, something really punk, nightmarish and very dangerous.

If the Boredoms were YOUR kind of thing and made your ears bleed in the early nineties, you might remember their musical direction made a very drastic change in the second half of that decade, looking for a more exotic sounds, digesting world sounds and other unexpected influences, transforming them completely and helping them find those trance-like qualities often found in music by artists like Can, Fela Kuti, Miles davis or Yoko Ono, thus the goal was not to be a noise act anymore, but to hypnotize the listener and to use music as the final, perfect and utopist drug just for mind bending and mind travel.

Guitars ring from moment to moment, sending eternal vibrations inside our already fried brains, perhaps those delayed strings may remind you at times of the work of U2´s The Edge, a master of delay himself, but don’t complain at this point, U2 might be boring as hell (except some moments where Brian Eno comes to save them from being truly boring and mediocre) but The Edge is a fearless guitarist, very much influenced by the sound of Television´s Tom Verlaine, and one who has played along such legends as Jaki Liebzeit (from Can) and Jah Wobble (from PIL), and while PC uses some similar elements on their delay heavy recording, they never get into the sort of stuff Bono and his cohort indulge, what you get here is a sick and putrid nightmare, the kind you can find in William S. Burroughs books and David Cronnenberg movies, of course there are moments of sheer beauty, but also pieces truly obscure and horrific.

Volumen 1 is a record so different to current Mexican music; an oasis within the always boring “alternative” scene in Mexico, very few bands these days really dare to get these loose, sickening loose like The Stooges or Can, while jamming this wild way, some may prefer simply to copy cat “alternative” U.S. Acts, but the sound of these guys really goes further than that, as they finally get to some really powerful kraut grooves, space darkness and the kind of cosmic ooze that made those seventies records that I love so much by Ash Ra Tempel, The Cosmic Jokers, Cluster, Tangerine Dream or Popol Vuh so special, so after been bored to death with the sound of kids trying to be the new Strokes, the new Franz Ferdinand and the next Café Tacvba, smile, shut the light off in your room, close your eyes so you descend into eternal darkness, and get ready to have your ugly brain penetrated by these awesome tunes made south of the border, down, down Mexico way.

I originally wrote this piece for Julian Cope Head Heritage page, now, it’s here for you to read it.