Las Escarlatinas Al Galope. At a gallop? Horses seem to be key. The cover is lovely. As always. Where is Ramon Leal? He has departed Siesta. Few details have been detailed. Has he gone back to playing Beatles records with his siter? Will he take Ana Laan with him? Please, no. So who has taken the reins for Las Escarlatinas? Guille Milkway. King of La Casa Azul. Mythic svengali figurehead behind many alleged spanish pop hits. I didn't love the latest La Casa Azul record. But this is splendid and marvelous. As good as the first Las Escarlatinas record? Certainly. But much different. It has lost that gilt of sophistication, the arrangements that seemed to have fallen prepossessed from heaven are diminished, heaven's turned downward like nickels falling into a jukebox underneath old photographs of Chevrolets and Bettie Page. Long foreign title on the first song. I never took Spanish. Sorry. Let's examine the content anyhow. I imagine, by the music, and the tone that it is about cloud photography. A young girl with her kodachrome snapping shots of different cloud formations that remind her of her childhood and the different guises of Orson Welles and her favorite curry dishes. It's a summery stroll. Single voice, very Sarah Cracknell solo album, much different then than Ramon Leal who was steeped in nothing so smothered in disco lux. Quite nice. Second song. Sounds as if they changed singers. I am not yet able to identify the girls by voice. Two of the girls have released solo records. I am not sure if either of the first two songs is by Bel or Cristina. Who are the other two then? They work at a carnival apparently as monkeys for an organ grinder, this is a circus romp of a pop song, it might have more appeal to the kids with Sir Milkyway's name affixed. It is somewhat recognizable for that. There isn't a sugar rush, perhaps a more complex rush, a galactose rush. Will Lua's solo record be out this year? It seemed as if Ramon Leal could produce a record every couple of weeks. Who will supplant his prolific fingers? I hope the answer is not Jez Butler. I'd hope for Bid and a return of the Fantastic Everlasting Gobstopper in time to perform as opening act for the next Las Escarlatinas tour. But I dream. Third song, peppier, is this Bel Divioletta then. Perhaps. She seemed to have more spunk than the others, at least juding by her solo record. Where is the Maria solo record? Fourth song now. A bit bossa nova mixed in with the El Records feverishfetishness. Nice. A male voice, Milkyway? Beautiful backing vocals on parade. Just wonderful! I love this album. As always. I love everything. The guitar solo is not very Ramon Leal. He would have not have imposed it, unnecessary to feature it as prominently, he would have made the guitar notes turn red from blush, romantically entwined instead. In a recent entry I decried the new confidence in indiepop. This is a confident record but then these are professionals. Allegedly one is an architect and an exceptional flautist, fiction. A nice combination that. Mateo from Siesta lamented over the lack of professionalism in a number of bands around Madrid. He's rather used to having his stable of godlike geniuses create these effortlessly romantic records without much guidance from the whims of popular consciousness. This is not popular anywhere. Well, in Japan this will surely sell loads. This current song is Mi Buhardilla Six and it's delicate, amazing and touching. Which singer? No idea. It is loads better than anything Saint Etienne has produced in the past 18 years. Even as it sounds like the best Saint Etienne record of the past 18 years. But when you are confident it helps to be around people who are not blessed equally because they will marvel at your pluck for standing up and accomplishing all of the things they can only dream of. I react jealously to Michael Chabon because he's out and he's writing brilliant novels and being praised for it and I am here writing nonsensical stream of consciousness entries about Spanish pop bands singing romantic songs in a language I could not seduce a tree in. It's all so very depressing. When I am on an airplane in less than a week I will be impelled to make a list of the goals I want to accomplish next year and finishing my book will be at top of the list. Perhaps acquiring a firm grasp on the rules of grammar and the proper use of a semi-colon should rank above that but you know I need this list to be glamourous and sparkling. I won't have my permanent new tooth until March 2009. It takes a long time to make a tooth from scratch, they take black pitch, snowballs from the Matterhorn and the spun silk hair of pretty little orphans raised in Australia to make my teeth. It is a delicate science. Another lovely song is playing now. Dormir o Morir, I would say this isn't Almudena or Bellen. I could be wrong. They don't sing together that often, not on record. Do they play live? Do Siesta bands play live ever? Real Siesta bands, the imaginary bands, do they have fantastical concerts on lilypads and under toad stools? I wish. This came out the same day as Scarlet's Well. That was a delightful day experience. It has summer in a bottle. Open this album up and inhale deeply to conjure the spirits of the season of love and everlasting youth. I can still outrun a Diesel from the 1970s. A Bonneville with an Albanian driver was never a match for me and my hot legs. Oh dear Humanzee is on the Science channel. Creepy. I had to change the channel. I'd rather watch a show on the exploits of Alexander instead, wait for the dreams of Sirocco's and steel plates rising from the floor of the sea. Next song has started, glorious. Is this better than the last Las Escarlatinas record? Yes. Sorry Ramon Leal. Who will make the new Rita Calypso record then? All of these unanswered questions. I should be asleep. I need to awake tomorrow morning and step out into the morning air with naked toes and assess whether the conditions are fit for human vocation nay avocation. And then enter a maze of voicemails and keep from laughing at Tom Cruise's eyepatch in Valkyrie and not picture him talking as a pirate would when attempting a German accent to leave a professional message before my day off on Tuesday. I have most of my vacation days to take off in the next two weeks or I lose them. I could give them to charity or to the vagrants that solicit for money for drugs and alcohol while standing at busy intersection with unimaginative signs. Next song. I swear this is Bellen. Or it could be another. It's chugging. It's about Japan. A plea to the home market? A sop? Perhaps David Scott should helm the next Las Escarlatinas record? How has he eluded the golden fleeces at Siesta for this long? He's seemingly fond of working with Germans and Marina's covers have as much or more class than Siesta's. Don't they? Stefan at Marina has exquisite taste the same as Mateo. They should marry. They should step in and replace Pinnacle with a company commited to not releasing records by the Charlatans or Kaiser Chiefs. I love this song now, love too. This is an airplane record, when the women next to me reveal their girth and lack of refinement and I sit crouched in between reading another Chabon convinced that I could be this clever. Next song. And yet another Saint Etienne-like moment of pop excelsior. Is this Lua? Maria? Who knows. This is better than La Casa Azul. For certain. There are delicate moments mimicking the tenderness of a Ramon Leal arrangement. Is Ramon on street corners in Madrid with a sign 'will arrange brilliant pop records for food? Is he re-enacting the ritual death of Hiram Abiff deep in the bowels of a Masonic temple in Pittsburgh, PA? Were he here he'd be frozen now. It is above zero, only just, oh wait I lied, it is -7 degrees fahrenheit. I should open the windows and play this album to the elements and bless our barren wasteland with the gift of warmth and fertility. Next to last song, folky, chirpy, very Siesta. It is on Siesta. I booked my flight to Myrtle Beach, I am assuming the weather forecast will not include negative numbers. I look forward ot the afternoons on the beach reading in solitude, listening to the sea lap the shore gently, in the arms of a winter respite. I look forward to vicarious kites flying and children chasing sand borne seagulls across the leading edge. It will echo the heart beat within this lovely musics. I am making a stop in New Orleans, in transit. I was a visitor once, in New Orleans, during Mardi Gras, such human depravity should not be as celebrated. Las Vegas can't compare. It's the genetic deficiency of those that measure the revelers that frightens the stolid hearts of northerners who think themselves sophisticates. This music would go over like the plague in New Orleans. If only the mail had strange powers as it once possessed. If only the air would be charged with melody as it is in Madrid. If only the grey skies were not leeched from the colourless earth.