Las Malas Amistades - Maleza Vinyl 2LP

Gatefold double LP version. Las Malas Amistades -- "the bad influences" -- are from Bogota, in Colombia; Maleza is their third album for Honest Jon's. Lovingly assembled, it presents 28 exquisite variations of saudade (a Portuguese term associated with poetic notions of love and nostalgia), in an acoustic, post‐punk take on Tropicalismo -- knockabout, impromptu, snapshot and sublime. Vice Magazine describes Las Malas Amistades' music as "kind of like if the Young Marble Giants sang in Spanish and didn't fully know how to play." Maleza was recorded over a period of four years at member Humberto Junca's house in the middle of a busy and chaotic neighborhood. One member illustrates, however, the record "sounds as peaceful and quiet as if it were recorded in some cave in the hills...

If you read the lyrics for the songs in Maleza, you may think that these four years were especially eventful in the sentimental department. There is a lot of despair and anger and distrust, as if each one of us had looked for and found an especially ill‐suited person to go out with so we could write a couple of sad songs about the whole experience. But if you don't read the lyrics and just listen to the music, both vocal and instrumental, you might get a different idea. It all sounds very peaceful and fragile, as if beneath that layer of anger there was always a melancholic yet hopeful stream."