Le Mans - Saudade

Elefant
(ELE1111: 8428846211114)

$11.29

1. Desacierto

2. Canción De Puede Ser

3. ¡Oh Romeo, Romeo!

4. Lucien

5. Travesía

6. Dry Martini

7. Saudade

8. Orlando

9. Paramour

LE MANS’ progression since the times of “Aventuras de Kirlian” (DRO, 1989) is far more than evident. In their first LP as LE MANS (“Le Mans”, Elefant 1993), they began to show the characteristics that would trademark what critics insist on calling “Donosti Sound” (from Donosti, homeland of the band’s members): simple songs, sweet, naïve, innocent and very elegant.

It is precisely elegance one of the features that will mark their subsequent trajectory; so is sweetness, but not simplicity anymore, beginning to hide under an infinite, ever evolving talent. In their second album, “Entresemana” (Elefant,94), they adorn their songs with a romantic feeling, to reach sentimental peaks they keep transcending on every new record. String arrangements give their music a deeper, warmer atmosphere. What in the beginning was joy, love, unconcern... becomes disillusion, indifference, disenchantment... but with encouragingly open endings. Teresa’s lyrics go with this progressive “mellowness” of the band, and will find their bigger goals in “Saudade”, LE MANS’ fourth record.

But, after “Entresemana”, they have had time enough to prove that their aims are broader than the close grooves in their records. They have collaborated with FANGORIA in “Disco 2000” compilation, and have released a mini-LP, “Zerbina” (Elefant, 1995) where they show their passion for the last trends in the so-called “intelligent dance music” (trip-hop, jungle, ambient, experimental dub...), in collaboration with EXTRA LUCID, PEZ-PARAFUNK and VANGUARD.

In 1995 comes “Saudade”, the LP that should definitely confirm LE MANS as the great song manufacturers they are. Even deeper, denser, more... ¿serious? Yes. “Saudade” is cutting and sincere. Instrumentation comes foreground; “Orlando” is almost a song without Jone (the singer), and in “Desacierto” they reach unsurpassable peaks of beauty, an assessment that could match the rest of the songs of the record, which could be stars in their own singles.

The vinyl format is double 10”, and again the cover art is signed by the renowned designer Javier Aramburu, collaborator of the band since their beginnings.