This Thursday the traditional presentation party for Monkey Week Son Estrella Galicia was held at the Longoria Palace of the SGAE. Names like Destroyer, Cupido, La Tania, Joe Crepúsculo, Sanguijuelas del Guadiana, Teo Planell, TRISTÁN already appeared on the poster! & The Jazz Band, Juventude and dozens of other artists, many established like Karmento or Le Parody, but especially new ones like Los Chivatos. “The music of tomorrow,” they call it.
The news of the 2025 edition is the return to Puerto de Santa María after a few years in Seville, where the organization felt more and less pressure and less support from the institutions, fundamentally the mayor’s office.
Tali Carreto, co-director of Monkey Week, was excited talking about this return to the province of Cádiz, as he considers the event “urban.” The spirit of Monkey Week is to occupy the historic center of a city, not to be increasingly located on the outskirts, and Puerto de Santa María will allow it. Some of the settings will be the Monasterio de la Victoria, the Castillo de San Marcos, the Bodegas Caballero, the Pedro Muñoz Seca Theater… which will mean that, for example, we will see some of the concerts in a chapel. There will be no shortage of bumper car tracks.
The institutions present supported an old acquaintance such as Tali and the independent music industry gathered there, in general. Tomás Fernando Flores, director of Radio 3 and former presenter of Siglo 21, expressed how much this century has disappointed him. “In the last couple of years we have seen and heard things that we would not have imagined,” he said, referring to “the bitterness” of the present times “at a global level.” He praised music as a refuge.
The artists present followed the same line, such as Maximiliano Calvo, who offered a beautiful acoustic concert that went from unplugged to quasi-rock, in the company of a violinist. During the press conference, he declared: «This summer I have been at festivals as an artist and as an audience and it seems that music has less and less weight. And that does not happen in Monkey Week (…) It returns to the place where it started: more honest, impossible.
As for the latest confirmations of a lineup that never seems to close, there are 22 new names, led by La Paloma, who have just released the notable ‘Un Golpe de Luck’, top 3 vinyl album in Spain. Los Sara Fontán, Ajou!, Anouck The Band, Capitão Fausto, CastaZabal, Dear Joanne, Delfina Campos, Devon Rexi, Drûpe, Euskoprincess, La Valentina, Lagoss, Marineros, Mitsune, Moundrag, Pleito, Salvana, Susobrino, TOC, Winona Riders and the Uruguayan Gonzalo have also joined Brancciari, winner of the 2024 Graffiti Award for Best New Artist, and protagonist of the Spanish-Uruguayan exchange of the SGAE Foundation.
As for the professional conferences, Anamaria Sayre (Tiny Desk producer in charge of sessions such as those of Ca7riel and Paco Amoroso, Karol G or Nikki Nicole), Rodrigo Duarte (Rock Al Parque programmer), Javier Hernández (coordinator of Viva Latino México), Oskar Strajn (booker at Eurosonic and also involved in the ESNS Radar initiative and the Music Moves Europe Awards), Phoebe Lou Smolin (publicist and manager who has worked with labels such as Captured Tracks and artists such as Lido Pimenta) or Canan Yurdakul (booker at the prestigious European agency EBB Music), among other guests.
Subscriptions for the general public are now available on the official website, which allow access to concerts and showcases, as well as professional subscriptions, which also facilitate access to Monkey PRO sessions.
