La gran esfera - La Casa Azul

 

When Barcelona producer Guille Milkyway released his debut record as La Casa Azul in 2000, the project was still somewhat tethered to the guitar-driven sound of traditional indie pop. Starting with a base of jangly, mid-’60s bubblegum pop, La Casa Azul’s early works on Elefant overflowed with sugary synthesizer, adapting Brian Wilson’s kitchen sink orchestration to fit the palette of 21st-century electronica. Wasting little space, his arrangements were one part Stereolab and one part Shibuya-Kei, fizzing like volatile concoctions in a mad professor’s lab.

As La Casa Azul garnered national attention in the late-aughts, nearly earning a spot in 2008’s Eurovision Song contest, Milkyway began to embrace an even more syncretic approach to pop, nicking ideas from ABBA and Electric Light Orchestra to flesh out his kaleidoscopic brand of retro-futurism. 2011’s La Polinesia Meridional was a tropical mix of ‘70s funk and the blog-rock poptimism of bands like Passion Pit and Two Door Cinema Club. Though a bit more attuned to mainstream tastes than his past work, the evolution worked in the band’s favor, furthering their quest for the perfect pop hook.

Developed between 2012 and 2019, La Gran Esfera is La Casa Azul’s most recent LP and their most radical sonic shift to date. Infused with the flashy bombast of festival EDM and a dash of trap percussion, the record retains Milkyway’s commitment to all things saccharine through a more contemporary lens. While opener “Podría Ser Peor” modernizes disco grooves in the vein of Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories, tracks like “A T A R A X I A” feel more entrenched in the present moment than ever. 808s drums ripple against silicone synth pads that ooze sentiment, peaking with ecstatic future bass synth drops. Though something of an outlier in the Elefant catalog, La Gran Esfera is one of the label’s most impressive offerings, mining the landscape of Top 40 pop for its hidden indie pop charm.