Rufus T. Firefly is no longer the only band you know from the Madrid town of Aranjuez. Bum Motion Club released a debut this month called ‘Claridad y laurels’, after two previous EPs based on styles such as shoegaze, dreampop and, to a lesser extent, post-rock. ‘April’ from the first and ‘Niebla’ from the second are among his first small hits.
‘Claridad y laurels’ was presented by the single ‘Almost a good day’, in which they talked about “instability, precariousness, the immediacy of information and the plastic feelings of use and throw away.” That is, the theme could be a reference to the theme of Los Planetas, but this song does not talk about football, drugs and heartbreak:
«Something is not working
It’s far from fine.
(…)
Maybe it’s fear
self-esteem or anxiety,
all the weight on the back
of this generational trap.
Now another of the album’s songs has caught our attention. ‘The Death of Tomorrow’ is our “Song of the Day” for this Monday. The song that opens the album has a much more decisive role of the keyboards, and also adds a bridge with a pluck in which the reference seems to be the indie pop of the 80s. My Bloody Valentine and Nudozurdo may come to mind, but also bands more suitable for the masses, like La Dama Se Esconde.
The song presents a dark, more abstract theme, containing the unanswered question that gives the album its title: “Who will give me clarity and laurels in the eternal night?” One verse sounds more pessimistic (“the future punishes when everything is dark”) than the other (“if the bridges collapse (…) I would return home”), in the same way that keyboards offer a more hopeful vision than electric guitars distorted.
The title of the song does not harbor much hope, but the melody clearly does or, at the very least, makes that “death of tomorrow” sound resigned and poetic. There could also be some political-social connotation: “rather die than be part of it, than be one of them.”
Bum Motion Club perform on November 17 in Palma, and on the 22nd at the Sala El Sol in Madrid. In December they will be in Santander (day 1), in Oviedo (day). Next year Vic, Barcelona, Zaragoza, Pamplona, Bilbao and Salamanca await, for now. Details, here.
