EL BOSQUE EN LLAMAS, PUMUKY
Jabalina, Spain ****
Rating: 85
By Carlos Reyes
El Bosque En Llamas is a musical storm with all the mystery to hold its name to any altitude. Somewhere in between Bigott, Nacho Vegas, Sr. Chinarro and Zurdok, Pumuky’s second album holds its melody with a terrific merge of obscure strings, powerful distressing lyrics and the night’s scary and heart-trenching roar, these are the signs and souls of loneliness and despair in search of salvation. The album opens with the dreamy and hard folky “El Innombrable”, our third encounter with purgatory this year after Veracruz’s “Odetta Satan’s Rum” and Hello Seahorse’s “Bestia.” This is not only about a forest in flames; it’s about ‘the man in the forest in flames’, I might not want to visit this bloodcurdling place myself but it sounds like a great place to get rid of fears or to get lost in from time to time. This is how Pumuky first introduces this place for escapism, “si desaparezco es porque ya no tiemblas cuando voy y te abrazo, y te beso por el cuello”; indifference does hurts like few things in life and it’s reason enough to dissapear and hide with the wolves and the wild horses as the album’s cover suggests.
It finds in nature an unwelcoming environment, but it’s obscure and isolated enough to cry in it, sometimes that’s the only way to find the precious peace. “Tu Marca” is painfully depressing and its deafening burst can alienate more than a few, but it plays as a key piece in the album because it complies into broader efforts than just giving continuation to a ‘lament’ album, it distorts and creates images that manage to filter any obtrusive dramatic echo for our advantage. “El Electrico Romance de Lev Termen y La Diva del Eter” it’s a moon-like sublimal trip that tries to reconcile the distorted idea of Russian inventor Leon Theremin, whose invention –Theremin- managed to “control electronic frequency and volume without contact from the player.” (Wikipedia) Like many avant-garde bands Pumuky utilizes it to polish its sound, but also extracts poetry from it as it believes in co-participation if either construction or reconciliation wants to be achieved.
“Los Enamorados” is a sweet tune that challenges the album’s biggest strengths and it turns victorious as it is the most memorable piece, it’s affectionate and holds a happy momentum, the album never goes back to this paradise and gets even darker, not losing a bit of magic even in the crying yells of “El Exilio de los Invisibles.” If Juan Son submerged himself in water in Mermaid Sashimi, Pumuky does that in El Bosque en Llamas. The band gets acquainted to the wild, uncompassionate and cold-hearted place, witnessing a fight in “Lobo Estepario Contra Caballos Desbocados”, a moment in the mirror in “El Hombre Bosque En Llamas”, and a metamorphosis in “La Metamorphosis”, pay close attention to the background layering and the narrative, it’s not an easy album whatsoever, I slept over it for many weeks not knowing what to do with it, it’s totally fine if it makes you sleepy or alienates the heck out of you, who says a forest on fire is a comfy place to witness? It’s hell.
"Matemos esas hormigas de la cocina, quitemos lo podrido del frutero, limpiemos la nevera, llenemosla, hagamos algo para enamorarnos ... otra vez. Gastemos el dinero que nos queda, en fuegos de articifia y chucherias, hagamos algo absurdo, amemonos, hagamos algo para enamorarnos ... otra vez."