The last time we were in the world of Peanut Butter Wolf ’s Stones Throw Records, it was for the release of The Mars Volta’s Omar Rodriquez Lopez’ album Old Money. This album by Savath y Savalas is nothing like as loud as Lopez’ prog-psych-rock.

Prefuse 73 who made his name on Warp Records with abstract, IDM, downtempo, hip-hop joins up with Eva Puyuelo Muns and Roberto Carlos Lange for Savath y Savalas’ “Catalan acid-folk project”.

Like an updated Spanish version of Visions Of Dawn (by Joyce, Nana Vasconcelos, Mauricio Mastro), this one is for fans of acoustic leftfield Latin neofolk.

You may recall, Savath & Savalas’ ‘Estrellas De Dos Caras’ made it onto Sonar Kollektiv’s Secret Love 5 compilation last year but on the new album, it’s a be tricky to highlight stand-out tracks as it’s fairly one-paced downtempo, especially as most the tunes are relatively short. The title track comes in at the longest and is one of my favourites along with the weird ones like ‘Intro’ and ‘Adeu’ as they remind me of early Daedelus (not forgetting Prefuse 73 featured on Daedelus’ classic Exquisite Corpse album).

And talking of influences, this album is a bit Carlos Niño & Friends High With A Little Help From and The Long Lost, Daedelus (again) and Laura Darlington whilst Herron says it was “70s independent music scene that had briefly flourished in Recife, Brazil and neglected-visionaries like Marconi Notaro, Flaviola, the revolutionaries Lula Côrtes & Zé Ramalho as having an influence on La Llama”.

In fact, this album is a bit of a grower on from the leftfield, ‘Una Cura’ is like some free-jazz Arthur Verocai experiment and then ‘Pavo Real’ and ‘No Despierta’ are candidates for inclusion on any forthcoming Secret Love 6; whilst ‘Me Voy’ is like a cross between the two styles!

So there’s echoes of La Nueva Onda De Brasil, West Coast electronica, it’s sung in Catalan/Spanish and recorded in New York; not quite Paêbirú, but not from it.

It would appear Herren is just a busy now as he was a couple of years ago (see the FLY feature Prefuse 73 - Out Of The Box And Beyond The Bubble) as the long awaited Prefuse 73 album Everything She Touched Turned Ampexian (all 29 tracks of it) was released last month on WARP.

And it would be interesting to see what a Hefty-style History Is Bunk remix could do to La Llama (especially more Daedelus) but that can wait as there’s hidden depths to La Llama that improves on every listen.

Reviewed: Savath y Savalas - La Llama (Stones Throw Records) Cat. No: STH2215 Release date: 18th May 2009
Tracklisting:
1 Intro (1:40)
2 La Llama (5:32)
3 Las 7 Sendas (2:41)
4 Carajillo (4:17)
5 Una Cura (4:50)
6 Pavo Real (3:29)
7 El Colleccionista (3:15)
8 Sounds Of Bowery (0:23)
9 La Loba (2:39)
10 Pajaros En Cadaques (1:30)
11 Me Voy (3:39)
12 Untitled (2:42)
13 Barceloneta (3:20)
14 Postlude (0:26)
15 No Despierta (3:42)
16 Adeu (1:41)

Links:
www.stonesthrow.com/savath-y-savalas
www.myspace.com/savathysavalas1
www.robertolange.com
www.myspace.com/evapu
www.prefuse73.com
www.warprecords.com/prefuse73
www.myspace.com/prefusion1973
www.stonesthrow.com/omar