Sello Azul, Chile
Rating: 84
by Pablo Acuña
"Odio sentirme bien, odio sentarme acá, odio mirarte a ti, odio tener que hablar". There are no words. You just have to hear it. I’m talking about the initial seconds of "Odio", the opener on Planeta No‘s debut album. Describing something so personal would reduce its significance, rendering it a preamble or "entertainment". Some experiences need to be sat with, to be felt upon reflection when finding yourself back in the day-to-day humdrum rather than the excitable moment of confrontation. Naturally, though, we have no choice but to sit with it, and it’s in these moments where the true power of the display is felt. It’s a question that often rears its head whenever a piece of music moves us so supremely – perhaps the consistent intrigue comes from the fact that there isn’t ever a solid answer. Perhaps it’s too much of a personal question to ever really be concluded.
Led by Gonzalo Garcia (vocals/ synth/ guitar), Camilo Molina (bass) and Juan Pablo Garin (drums), Planeta No has been working around the clock for many months. Though having to cope with changing climates and limited resources to every day survival, they've always been surrounded by empeñosos companions that provide purpose to their work. An example of this was Matucana, an EP that proved that the band could be exported to Latin American countries along with other exporters of Chilean music.
On the band's debut LP, Planeta No gravitates towards a young teenager moment in which you do not take in the weight of that word and spontaneity dictates the course of it, because it simply makes you feel good. Opening track ‘Odio’ is brave in many senses, as we absorb the array of emotions and succumb to the empathy, regardless of whether you are a teenager or in you're in the late twenties or thirties. A more joyful ‘Sol a Sol’ comes next, summoning the spirit of love and happiness, but only to see it turn to vapors and leave us empty, bitter and regretful: “Para alejarte, no debo verte/ No quiero estar de pie, no quiero estar mejor”. "El Campo", "Ser y Deshacer" and "Ami el Niño de las Estrellas" reveal that in their upbeat nature there hides a nervous self-awareness that things are not how they should be. This theme continues into stand-out track "64", a neurotic, paranoid reflection on a failing relationship, in which desperation and the need to make meaning of it all ultimately precipitates the end.
On a personal note, I’ve always worried that music means too much to me that I get too lost in the worlds created by song to bother exploring the less successful traits of my own psyche. This happens with the rest of the songs in Odio. There are flashes of teenage memories that blurs from appreciating the quality of the album as a whole and that when explored, some of these songs end up screwing the magic that the album started to build, and so, instead, we categorise them as simply that: small pieces of magic that just are.
In some sense it is like these songs existed before us and here’s that proof, quietly embedding itself in to our memories like thoughts half-forgotten or dreams that quietly remain. However, most of he memories are about anger, that anger to see how you unwittingly transform in this adult, ridiculous, aggressive, idiot system.