Les Conches Velasques: Sitio y lacería

For those wondering when the next record from Dutch veterans The Ex will land, in the meantime the ultimate alternative has been found: Les Conches Velasques, at your service…

What began as a solo project of Pablo Jiménez, Les Conches Velasques quickly turned into a full-fledged band, with the Picore drummer joined by Jesús Landa, Sergio Segura and Sweet Williams’ Thomas House (Jiménez drummed on the latest SW release, and Segura recorded it). With all songs delivered in Spanish, the Zaragoza outfit dispense a brand of wiry hypno-punk that is built on the foundations of West African rhythms and edgy post-punk.

Les Conches Velasques gained a lot of traction with self-titled 2018 debut release, and while Celebración del trance profano followed three years later, like everything, its impact was blunted by the COVID pandemic.

Búho Ermitaño: Implosiones

However, bands like Les Conches Velasques don’t much care for attention, and that’s the beauty of outsider DIY culture; music is about community and comradery with everything else paling in comparison. And with their latest release, Sitio y lacería, you can feel that sense of togetherness. The songs, short, sharp, and delivered with a focus from a band being the best they can possibility be.

Sitio y lacería is one of those records that freezes everything around you. Almost like a wonderful experimental record that transports you to another world, Les Conches Velasques manage to dial in with a crystal-clear transparency between artist and listener. It’s achieved by being completely locked-in the groove and producing the kind of raw sound vibrations that epitomise soul. Artistic purity. Street-level reality.

Take the first two tracks, Cofradia and Escalera. With a gnarled punk ethos, Les Conches Velasques project the kind of hooping rhythms and jagged riffs that instantly etch to the brain. On Cigarra, that transparency is the great leveller. A call to arms from a marching band roaring down the streets. And on those very streets Carrillo kicks up the dust, with a stirring psychedelic rush inspired by the Tuareg.  

And while Sitio y lacería sees Les conches Velasques echo the sounds of West Africa, they also produce songs that surge with locality. Both Gravedad and Serena feed into the punk spirit of a vibrant Spanish DIY scene.

Glass State: In Conversation with Sweet Williams’ Thomas House

So too Lateral. With a sinister riff that snakes in and out, it’s like the lost song from the Broken Flowers OST. It adds to Les Conches Velasques’ appealing repertoire of sounds, and on the back of Sitio y lacería, it’s patently obvious this a band that should be reaching far more people than they currently are.

Perhaps the same could be said of the band’s label, Repetidor. Another source unearthing some of Spain’s finest underground talent, and in a world that continues to get stranger every day, with labels like Repetidor and bands like Les Conches Velasques, they are the last line of defence in combating the paradigm of the daily grind and that incessant ‘means to the end’.

Yes, Les Conches Velasques are the kind of band that make you feel alive. That’s the essence of what new music should accomplish, and with Sitio y lacería Les Conches Velasques have showcased a provocative attitude and delivered a string of songs that truly spark the senses.

Sitio y lacería is out now via Repetidor. Purchase from Bandcamp.