We’ve been hearing releases from Escupemetralla since 2017 and often found much to admire in the abrasive and chaotic surfaces of their intense electronic music. These two spiky anarchists from Barcelona, who like to maintain a low profile, have now embarked on a reissue programme of sorts, revisiting their back catalogue of cassette releases from the 1980s and 1990s. Today’s item Materia Exótica Del Universo 1988-1995 is packaged like a cassette, but in fact it’s a memory stick containing playable audio files for four full-length releases, plus a vinyl single from 1994. It’s magnificent noise. I’ve sometimes tended to look askance at what I regard as their mischievous “prankster” spirit, especially when attempting to account for their recent Pink Floyd-themed record which contained spiteful and sarcastic digs at mainstream culture and the recording industry. So it’s been very good to hear these earlier works, which reveal serious experimenters at work with a real commitment to innovation and ideas within these international genres of noise, industrial, and tape cut-ups.
Sublimado Corrosivo is from 1988 and like most of their cassettes appeared on the obscure Clonaciones Petunio label. Cover art of 1930s soldiers in uniform declares upfront their intentions and stance – they might be declaring war on common sense. Enjoying the unexpected jolts and minor shocks offered by their edits, juxtapositions, and imaginative repurposing of found sounds; these hypnotic loops and layers really draw the listener into a strange zone very effectively, and keep us there. “This is where the delirium hatched,” claim our two friends, referring to the monstrous birth of their project, invoking the spirit of William Gibson’s dystopias and implying that the television and typewriter were just as important to their music’s creation as the tape machine and synths. Even the title Sublimado Corrosivo contains sociopathic hints – it might be the name of a poison, or a deadly acid.
Burros de Dios / Asses of God is from 1990 – with cover art of a pious priest looking out at the audience and every track title referencing the Roman Catholic church and its liturgy. I think we have to assume this is another savage swipe at one of the established pillars of society. Escupemetralla themselves deem it a “black mass performed in a postmodern catacomb lit by faulty altar LEDs”, and offer similar hallucinatory images of childhood, saints, and the Virgin Mary, often hinting at the hypocrisy of the priesthood. Actually they stop short of spewing forth the sort of outright blasphemy and cross-trampling imagery we’ve since heard from many Black Metal bands, and what emerges is some tasty exploits in lo-fi electronics with drum machines, distortion, and tape malarkey. I’d have liked more voice work on this item, but it’s a grand surrealist adventure which would doubtless have been approved by Luis Buñuel. ‘Holy Rage’ is one track which hints at the intensity they would deliver in their later records. For another sardonic take on devotional themes, hear their Fe. Ezperanza y Caridad album from 2019.
Vida Y Color from 1991 brings us a step closer perhaps to the “industrial” genre which is a handy tag to apply to much Escupemetralla music, with its grisly “grim reaper” cover printed to look like a playing card or perhaps the 13th Tarot atout. Photocopied image-deterioration adds to the horrifying determination of this scythe-wielding apparition. By this date, our Spanish buddies appear to be mastering many aspects of their synths and beat-boxes, and almost arrive at a species of clunky dance music. But they’re still wedded to adding layers, loops and absurdist interventions that make the awkward music quite unsuitable for any dance floor or festival situation, instead creating a compelling mesmerising burr of evil mulch that is laced with a palpable sense of tension, bordering on outright dread. The dog barks and howls on ‘Poclain’ are a stroke of genius. Another strong release.
Given my preferences for lo-fi and distortion, I’m less excited by 1995’s Multimierda, which has a slightly more polished surface than the items above, and also serves up a form of warped disco that isn’t too far away from Coil. Escupemetralla at this time were fed up of being ignored, and resented the way that more respectable acts were sweeping the plaudits at Sonar and other music festivals. It’s not a scene I know anything about, but I suppose big names such as Orbital, The Prodigy, Underworld and Future Sound of London were earning mucho dinero and column inches in the music press at this time, as hungry fans swarmed to their tents in numbers. If I’m reading it right, Multimierda is another sarcastic dig and aimed specifically at this moment in music / dance culture. Escupemetralla call the tape a “sonic prank” and explicitly intended to “toss a banana peel on the dance floor”. To make plain their indifference and disapproval, the music is purposefully “bad” – made with dubious sound sources, broken keyboards, synths that couldn’t hook up by MIDI, that sort of thing. That’s their story anyway, so maybe I’ve simply fallen for their clever joke. The title of course pokes fun at the pretensions of multi-media, something regarded to this day as a worthwhile aspiration for any band or solo gonk with a synth who seeks to dabble in theatre, cinema, TV, and ballet; the photo collage on the cover makes a more general satirical point, but in a rather heavy-handed manner.
The Third World Chickenpoxp single might not actually have been released in 1994, but it seems it was commissioned by Carburetor Records in America, home of the notorious plunderphonic types The Tape Beatles. Escupemetralla completed the commission for a 5-inch single, but the project fell through – indeed the label itself seems to have expired after just nine releases. Hearing it now, it’s plain that Escupemetralla have turned in a tiny masterpiece of Beatles cut-up plundering, very much reminiscent of The Residents Play The Beatles, and the cover art admits to everything with its Third Reich ‘N Roll pastiche. Instead of Hitler, the target this time is Nicolae Ceaușescu, the Romanian totalitarian; while the back cover apparently has a vicious send-up of Kentucky Fried Chicken. Everything and the kitchen sink is thrown into these two mixes, maybe even including some Residents samples; we’re very close now to the near-sickening audio overload of excess which these Spaniards have manifested on more recent records. It’s also a loving tribute to The Residents, whose work they love and respect.
Very pleased to have received this excellent comp. The records are “packaged” virtually as separate reissues on Bandcamp, but here’s your chance to own all this radical early material on one handy memory stick. Once plugged in, it will display as a local web page – a “collapsed wormhole”, to use their own words – with dozens of clickable links taking you to the music, plus loads of texts, images, and videos, all in Spanish and English. Quite the feast! From 22nd August 2025.