World Tour

clockwise l-r: Kill West, Enema Noise, Aloha Haole, Sexores

Week 7: South America

There's nothing but an awful lot of water between New Zealand and South America. You could never swim it. Therefore it's a long 18hr flight that will take us to our next destination - Argentina.

Argentina has given us all kinds of significant people over the years. The current Pope (Francis) is an Argentine, as was famous revolutionary Che Guevara. Then there are the footballers - Lionel Messi and Diego Maradona... ring any bells? But let's be honest, you'd be hard pressed to name any famous Argentine rock stars, right? So we've come in search of some great music from the country, even though I don't really know where to start. However, I haven't drawn a blank!

We land in Buenos Aires which is fortunate as that's where we'll find Kill West, a band who make a rather splendid noise blending psychedelic rock with shoegaze and garage rock. Their debut album 'Smoke Beach' came out last year, and from it is the epic Signs.

• Signs - Kill West (from 'Smoke Beach')

We've done an awful lot of flying just lately, so for a change I'm going to move on by bus. We're crossing the border into Brazil where we've recently been gripped by the Olympics. The bus journey takes a long time. Like, 30-odd hours. I'm not sure what to expect, but I'm sure it'll be more, erm, interesting than a flight. Character-building, that's what I like to call it.

We're headed for Brasília, the purpose-built capital of Brazil. The city was built in five years between 1956 and 1961, though plans for this grand new futuristic city date right back to 1827. Anyway, history lesson over - we're here because of the charmingly-named Enema Noise, a noisy post-hardcore band. They've released three EPs to date, the most recent of which is self-titled and came out at the start of this year. It is available to download for free from their Bandcamp page, as is its predecessor from which this track Siso is taken.

• Siso - Enema Noise (from 'Manual Pouco Prático Do Desapego')

Another long bus trip north to the city of Teresina to catch some extra-loud surf-punk. Apparently, Teresina is the hottest city in Brazil. And if that's not interesting enough for you, it also boasts the third highest number of major lightening incidents in the world!

Aloha Haole have made a mini-album, an EP and a single in the last two years. You kind of know what to expect from them after hearing just a couple of tunes, but they're great fun nonetheless. The vid is for Haole On The Beach, a track from their debut, and uses footage from some old surf movie, while the MP3 is a song taken from its not-so-subtly-titled follow-up. It mashes together Dick Dale's classic Misirlou and the Theme From Mission Impossible with a bit of Batman thrown in.

• Pout Pourri da Puta'qui Parri - Aloha Haole (from 'The Fucking Summer Rain Fucked Up My Vacation' EP)

Sod this bussing lark, my next journey will take days, so I'm hopping on another plane. From north east Brazil, we head to the tiny (by comparison) nation of Ecuador on Brazil's north west border. In the capital Quito we'll find a really good dreampop/shoegaze band called Sexores... oh, wait a minute, they recently relocated to Barcelona. Ah well, no matter, they're still considered to be locals.

Since 2010, Sexores have released a number of records that fit right in with the whole shoegaze revival that's been in full swing for the past few years. Their latest EP 'Red Rooms' came out in July, but here's a couple of earlier songs; the video for Techos Rotos from 2014's 'Historias de Frío', and the quite frankly wonderful Titán, a single from the previous year.

• Titán - Sexores (single)

Northbound next week...