***After a decade-long absence Monterrey, Mexico's Los Llamarada return with a brand new album! Many will remember the band’s original run through the aughts that brought three stellar albums on the wonderful S-S label, and many EPs and CDRs of post punk, no wave and psychedelic experimentation. The band's time was abruptly cut short due to lineup changes and the climate of paranoia brought about by the cartel wars of the area. But with increased stability the band has reformed and picked up right where they left off. Space and Time sees Los Llamarada experimenting with new ways of creation. The first major shift is opting for a digital studio recording as opposed to the trusty Tascam 4-track recordings of their past. While the band’s previous forays into the studio had yielded unsatisfactory results, this time around they used local punk legend Chuck Bubble’s home studio, which gave a more comfortable feel and allowed the band to improvise more freely. The sessions saw long-time member Estrella Ek Sanza return to her role on keyboard and vocals, which served as a turning point, reigniting the influence of chance, accidents, and the allure of the unknown. Mishaps were seized upon, allowing for new interpretations and new directions. On Space and Time, originally released digitally and as a limited edition cassette by Registros El Derrumbe, Los Llamarada’s sound continues to be as unique and powerful as ever. There is an undeniable influence from the post-punk sounds of bands like Wire and The Fall,...
LP $25.35
09/08/2023
***“Things are ok here but this year there wasn't a Christmas truce. In fact the city woke up on Dec 31 with the news of a dead topless woman hanging from a bridge in one of the main avenues. The woman (nicknamed The Redhead) was part of a gang of kidnappers, had been in prison for some months, and had been ‘rescued’ a few days before by an armed squad while being taken to the hospital for some unnecessary tests. It seems like her rescuers didn't want her to speak, or weren't really her friends to start with. The pictures were everywhere and very graphic. By that same night people were making jokes about The Redhead being a New Year's piñata.” Thus begins one of the dozens of emails from Monterrey, Mexico’s LOS LLAMARADA to S.S. Records during the recording of their third and final album, Gone Gone Cold. Since their first album on S.S., The Exploding Now!, Llamarada has made some of the most striking psychedelic punk of the last decade. In the spirit of Red Crayola and 13th Floor Elevators, Llamarada approach to psych is devoid of rules, trends, or convention. Like Mars, they feel their way through sound, finding songs in the playing. However, while The Exploding Now! and their second album, Take the Sky, reflect the band’s (then) excitement with their future and possibility, Gone Gone Cold looks at present day Mexico and its never-end Drug War. On Gone Gone Cold, fans of Los Llamarada will...
LP $16.00
11/15/2011
MP3 $9.90
12/06/2011
***“It’s been a couple years and some since the world has heard from LOS LLAMARADA. Aside from some emails back and forth describing the deterioration of Llamarada’s hometown, Monterrey, under siege in the Drug War, I hadn’t heard from out friends down south. Then in Fall 2010 I received nine cassette tapes full of Llamarada recordings, pretty much most of the stuff they’d been working on over the last two years. I spent the next few days going through them, quickly realizing that there was more material than an album could handle. So Llamarada and I plucked out a couple of killers for a 7” (and started working on the other cuts for a full length later in 2011). To start, Llamarada gives us their jump on ‘Rezo Por Voz,’ a classic by Argentinian rock legends Luis Alberto Spinetta and Charly Garcia. In the Llamarada way, what you hear of ‘Rezo Por Voz’ in ‘The Restless Light’ are hints and dustings of the original. This is no straight cover, but a psych punk romp of claustrophobic proportions. Flip the single over and we have ‘A Current,’ an original taut and moody, a guitar drones spaghetti western style over a tense plain. Drop this into the opening scene in El Topo and I wouldn’t complain. Cover art by HERLA ALARCON. 500 pressed.”
7" $6.00
01/25/2011
“Monterrey, Mexico is the second biggest city in Mexico, one of the intellectual hubs south of the border, and home to LOS LLAMARADA. These four youngsters met while studying psychology and decided to take their brains and fill them with noise. Good thing for you because what they came up with is a great murky noisy claustrophobic no wave mind storm. While touches of Mars, very early Sonic Youth, and even Patty Waters show up in Llamarada’s sound, what mi amigos are pounding out is pretty much all their own. Am I excited about this one? Damn right, I am. And once again, like all the other bands S-S released before you ever heard of them (A Frames, Cheveu, Nothing People, a bunch of Tete de Bebe bands), I urge you to take a chance with Los Llamarada (pronounced : Los Yama-RAda). 600 copies, screened sleeves.”
LP $12.00
03/26/2007
MP3 $7.92
08/31/2010