FLEDERMAUS, DOMINGO EN LLAMASUnsigned, Venezuela ***1/2
Rating: 77
By Carlos Reyes
Theatrical music is too often misinterpreted as folk, but Fledermaus unites both of them in a pastoral high-quality album. Domingo En Llamas is a remarkable one-member folk act from Venezuela that doesn’t even have a label to back him up. I love getting lost in MySpace jumping from one page to another and one day I noticed how his profile picture followed me everywhere, once I click I was grateful to do so. He brought memories of Tom Ze and Beirut right away and his understanding of music is undisputable. According to his website, Domingo En Llamas began in 2004 and already has already done six LPs, we’re talking about music hunger and he is a great chef. Going through his website I found yet another two awesome aspects about this artist, all his albums are available for free download and he apparently worked on Bruno EP, the little gigantic jewel from Jovenes y Sexys. Fledermaus is very acoustic and spontaneous, all together fits perfectly in the new lo-fi from South America. The leading track “Cuando vuelvan los que ayer corrian” is a puzzle of words perfectly instrumented and comfortable in its usage of figurative language. Another key piece is “Trabalenguando”, an experimental folk track that among other things feels very religious. Incredibly, sometimes the album sounds very circus-like, although there is not a wide variety of instruments here. “Leonora” feels like one of those tracks Kevin Johansen makes that somehow makes us dance. Make sure to add Domingo En Llamas to the list of great Latin folk, if you’ve enjoyed my persistent recommendation on Lisandro Aristimuño and Chak, you’ll love this. Although the album is free, I’ve decided to extract some key tracks so you can taste it first.