Una vuelta más sobre el eje imaginario, Digisagas
Fuego Amigo Discos, Argentina
Rating 75
by Giovanni Guillén
If you were to ask a friend to describe Digisagas’ sound, solely based on their cover art, and the answer wasn’t jangly, sunny pop to soundtrack your super 8 film, you might never want to trust that friend’s musical intuitions again. On Una vuelta más sobre el eje imaginario, the Argentine band is being as straightforward as one can be through an album cover. Naturally, such directness will prompt the skeptics to state the obvious: this is music we’ve heard before. True. But I’d be lying if I said I always want to be challenged when it comes to new tunes. Sure, pop can bend the rules and push the envelope, but another inherent quality of pop (even indie pop) is how easy it is to enjoy. With Digisagas, composer Diego Litwiller and friends have produced a mini-album that is certainly easy to enjoy.
On first spin, it is tempting to lump Una vuelta… in with The Pains of Being Pure at Heart and their self-titled debut. The song “Sale el sol” could accurately be deemed a cousin to “Everything with You” with its smirky vocal delivery and even the shameless addition of cowbells. Repeated listens, however, help distinguish the sounds as more than mere retreads. Whereas the Pains have always gone for those sugar high melodies, Digisagas, for the most part, inhabit a more relaxed soundscape; in fact, imitating the youth on the cover (kitten optional) could benefit the listening experience. Other songs, like “Paseando” and the closer “Colobrí,” float by languidly, employing few actual lyrics to allow the music to set the tone.
But, like most indie pop records, one shouldn’t just accept fun and worry-free arrangements at face value. It would be shortsighted to say the album is all nostalgia and hummingbirds. Just like the Arthur C. Clarke paperback found on the album cover titled Childhood’s End, one can see themes of loneliness and adulthood (and how it sucks) embedded into the record. This is pretty much summed up when Litwiller sings, “ciertas cosas no me hacen bien y las sigo haciendo no sé bien por qué.” We don’t know either, but at least we know this is another fine addition to the Fuego Amigo Discos catalog.