PELADA
Speaking with a friend the other day, I mentioned that I never (hardly ever) look up openers prior to a show. I’m a sucker for mystery.
The unknown is a wonderful place. My thoughts paradoxically engulfed by both optimism and pessimism. My feet involuntarily tapping. My anxiety wrapping its fingers around my bowels. The alcohol in my system catalyzing euphoric waves that permeate my being despite feelings of uncertainty.
More often than not, I’m rendered underwhelmed.
But on special occasions, when you go into an opener as blind and as naive as a newborn calf, you discover a sound you’ve never heard before in your life. It feels good. It’s arousing. It’s palpable. It swallows you and never the other way around.
Pelada swallowed me whole.
The Montreal-based duo cradled me. Nursed me at their teat. And as I had just barely begun to settle into the acid house synths and drum machines of Tobias Rochman on the buttons, I was shaken out of my entranced state and violently thrown to the ground.
Out of somewhere, Chris Vargas’ vocals cut through the music like a hot serrated knife to a loaf of fresh baked whatever.
They were pissed.
“Todo hace parte la problema,” the argued. “No hay la solución” they screamed. “Sigo sin teniendo la solución.”
Everything is part of the problem. There is no solution. I’m still without a solution-- A battle cry aimed at the patriarchy, gender roles, the injustices of the world.
It was impossible not to agree. It was impossible not to dance.
I hope to catch them again one day.
Check out the EP “No Hay/Ten Cuidado” below.
