Angelusnoctis - Bats inside my head

The power of our useless brains
helps me to forget my daily pain
we make one step after another
and we try to discover
our evil border

Lola Angst - “Just Slaves”

Remembering last august again, my second day in the Mera Luna. I don’t actually feel like telling anything today, so I’ll just add some photos of the festival.

Here you have Big Boy (with Chris Harms!, that was a surprise for me), a great pick of Cruxshadows (see that Sangria brick!!!) and The 69 Eyes. My photos of Diorama and Rabia Sorda aren’t as good as I wanted, as they played inside the angar and the light was quite poor.

Today I feel lazy, and I don’t have enough energy to write my second post about the Mera Luna…

I’ve been in a “Depeche Mode” mood these days, so here you have one of the songs I’ve been listening this week at the office. I love the music, their look, the lyrics… Let’s play Master and Servant!

Depeche Mode - Master and Servant

Theres a new game
We like to play you see
A game with added reality
You treat me like a dog
Get me down on my knees

We call it master and servant
We call it master and servant

Its a lot like life
This play between the sheets
With you on top and me underneath
Forget all about equality

Lets play master and servant
Lets play master and servant

Its a lot like life
And thats whats appealing
If you despise that throwaway feeling
From disposable fun
Then this is the one

Dominations the name of the game
In bed or in life
Theyre both just the same
Except in one youre fulfilled
At the end of the day

Lets play master and servant
Lets play master and servant

Lets play master and servant
Come on, master and servant

I’ve been lost for a few weeks, because of a great amount of work and two travels to my beloved Germany… I promised to make my personal review of the Mera Luna Festival, so here it is. But just before start, I have to say that this summer has been one of the best, and at the same time, one of the strangest in my life.

First of all, I have to recognize that after been in Spktro festival in Vitoria, I didn’t have a lot of good expectations for the Mera Luna. I don’t know why, but it was that way (maybe I didn’t believe that anything could make me feel as happy as Spktro did). The day we arrived the festival (friday night) was raining cats and dogs. Rain stopped for a while and we could assemble our tents (quite an easy thing to put the pegs into the floor, as it was just mug!). It was f***ing cold! I think I just slept for half an our, we took the expensive coffee (2,50 €) and we went to Hildesheim to buy some food and drinks.

After our excursion to the town (where we found quite a interesting military shop), and after missing Lola Angst :’( … we got back to the festival and went to Assemblage 23 concert. But Client was there. For a moment we were affraid that some band was missing, but they just changed the order. Client was quite soft (as they are), and then Assemblage 23 came. It was nice, but a poor bass sound made songs sound strange. Although sun was shining too much by that our, and I was really tired, I enjoyed the concert.

Covenant, who played the next, was great. Everybody was so excited with them that some kind of good feelings were flying around us. Sound was not perfect, but Eskil Simonsson knew how to make us feel their music. His dancing body perfectly reflected the emotions… Sound was not the best, but it sounded ok. I was so stirred that was hard trying not to cry! My Mera Luna was begining… And my friends thought the same, that concert was one of the greatest.

After such a great time, I went to rest for a while and to get ready for the biggest one: And One. One of my favourites, it sounded great. I loved And One show, as they make their music sound different. They sing different, they play different.. there’s always a surprise in their live songs. They played the classics, but also some new ones (that great “Military Fashion Show”!!!). Must of them were quick songs, so the concert passed as it lasted for 5 minutes!! After that concert I thought that I should learn German, as I was singing like one possessed even the songs in German.. Sorrounded by Germans… xD Some of them may laughed at me!!

That day ended after a Suicide Commando show, where I could not stay for more than 3 songs. The music was too loud and some microphone distortions made my ears hurt. It was a pitty, as I like SC very much, but I was so tired that I had to go. I went back to the tent to have another cold sleeping night.

Mera Luna is coming!!!!!!!!! Tomorrow at this time I’ll be at the airport waiting for a flight to Hannover!!!

Today I wanna let you watch an And One video… I love them!! After the festival you’ll find the concert review here, but until I get to Spain again you have to comply with this video Enjoy!!!

I love this song!!! I have to recognize that DAF is not one of my favourites, but since the day I found this video in sonidosbcuro.com, I cannot stop listening to this song!.

Here you have it! Enjoy!

I have added a lastfm widget to my left sidebar, so now you can check the music I usually listen to.

If you don’t know http://www.lastfm.com/, just jump into it and begin enjoying (they don’t pay me for the promotion!! hehehe). Lastfm is a place where you can listen music. You search for an artist, or tag, and then you get a customized radio station that only plays songs that match with your searching criteria.

Some months ago listening to lastfm was quite poor, as they didn’t have a lot of dark music available. I tried searching for “Hocico” (begining with the big ones), and I just got about 10 songs. But as my colleagues went on listening to it everyday, I tried from time to time again, and some weeks ago, looking for Straftanz info, I found their profile in lastfm. It was a great surprise, as the song I was looking for was listed there, but I couldn’t listen to it. I didn’t understand why, and finally I found them in myspace.com.

Yestayday mi colleagues where talking about lastfm, and I told them my attempts to listen to music without success. They gave me the answer: if you download the lastfm.com software, you get a programme that is allways runing, and if you want, it takes the info from your music player to include it to the stats in lastfm. So you can get a general overview of the music you listen from your computer and from lastfm radios.

So there you have my profile in lastfm now, full of tracks I usually listen at home. And here you have mi new widget, taking the images of my top CDs… Give lastfm a try!!

Today I want to write about a great band. I knew about UnterArt some moths ago, through their myspace. I listened to the first song in their player, and the power of their music made me listen the other three songs. I had to look for some mp3…

I listened to their CD hundreds of times, and everytime I still listen it I think their music is better. Some songs are so deep… as ‘Aska’… and other are so industrial as ‘Hirntod’… Noise & Grace is a perfect combination of sounds through a well planned path of songs.

Last month I had the opportunity to go to a concert of them, in the Spktro Festival, which was made at my hometown, Vitoria. And it was great. I was excited by the idea of being in such a Festival (Aesthetic Perfection, UnterArt, RabiaSorda, Heimataerde and Grendel), as in Spain is not very usual to have these kind of events.

UnterArt was great, so great that I bought the CD at the end of the concert. I allways try to buy the music that I really like. It’s almost impossible to buy everything I want to listen, but I allways try to support bands I really like buying their music or merchandising, and going to their concerts. When I was buying UnterArt CD, Thomas Stein (one of them) appeared, and I told him I liked their concert a lot. I also confessed him that I had downloaded their CD from the internet, but I told him the difficulties we have to buy this kind of music in the mayority of the citys of Spain, and explained my reasons for buying the CD. It was a really nice night, as I was able to talk with him about the difficulties of making some work for this scene. We all have to work in our spare time, and we allways know that we are not going to get well paid for it unless we are really good and really famous.

So, I recommend you listen to UnterArt, and if you are able to do it, buy their CD (from Out of Line). It’s a good investment, as you’re gonna listen to it hundreds of times!!!

Some weeks ago searching for free photos in the internet (in the great community of http://www.sxc.hu) I found a curious one, that made me think about the design, the resources we use, and the small size of the dark electro scene.

The issue is that I found the photography of the latest CD cover for Combichrist. I was so amazed that I went to my Ipod to check that I was not confused. The photo uploaded by user ‘emsago‘, which is given free to use, was the one in the latest Combichrist CD (by the way, great CD, listening to ‘Shut Up and Swallow’ makes me dance even inside when I’m working quiet at the office!).

Immediately, I thought about all the times I have to do the same when designing for these kind of things, when I even make designs for free in my spare time just to help the scene grow a little bit with my job. For example, the poster I made in Halloween for a friend of mine, who owns a little but nice club in the city. I had to use several free images which I also took from Stock.schng, and today I’m revealing my work on this poster, and the photos that some people around the world decided to share.

As a designer, I want my works to be paid, but I think that maybe, the things I make and don’t use -beacuse finally I don’t like them- may be useful for others. I think sharing is a good way to optimize this work: sometimes my work is useful for others, and sometimes their work is useful for mine. At the end is just a big exchange of work among people from all over the world.