Los Lichis
Eerie Breedings
FRANCE L’EAU DES FLEURS eaudesfleurs004 LP (2023)
Live recordings from Mexico City and elsewhere dating from 2008 to 2015…the team of Gerardo Monsivais, Manuel Mathar, Jean Baptiste Favory and Jose Luis Rojas Cloche (sometimes joined by guest drummers and guitarists) play a distinctive edgy form of cheap organ garage-rock using a conventional rock set-up enriched with synths and drum machine. The cover painting by bassist Mathar also adds an essential injection of colour, low-grade surrealism, and the suggestion of masked wrestlers into the mix.
Having made all these proposals and comparisons, in fact this group of three Mexicans and one Frenchmen would likely refuse any form of musical categorisation, especially two labels which others have thrown at them to wit Krautrock / Kosmische and New Weird America, in the form of No-Neck Blues Band and other such overly-ritualistic improvising groups. Instead, they simply regard music as a “magical” action, claiming in their own words that “we rise to draw from the sources of the cosmic Grand Souk”, indicating I suppose that they don’t over-think it or analyse their performances, preferring to simply play. While this LP might be regarded as a concession to “conventional” rock music by this otherwise far-out label, on the contrary we find in these recordings the same concerns with pure sound production and an unvarnished honesty which exactly matches other releases in the (admittedly small) catalogue of L’Eau Des Fleurs. What I particularly like is the unaffected, simple approach of Los Lichis; here are genuine players who don’t care to puff themselves up with ambitious grand designs, utter pretentious or incomprehensible statements, strike poses, nor set themselves high-minded targets on which they cannot deliver. The plain, unadorned nature of the recordings – almost DIY in their lo-fi starkness – are all part of the charm and the aesthetic.
Given their occasional meanders into lysergic turf here and there, one is tempted to liken them to The Grateful Dead (around the time of Anthem Of The Sun), only without the bombast and without the slickness. Issued with a full-colour booklet insert containing some incredible images, paintings, and collages. Excellent. From 20 Feb 2024.