Subsol #2/2022

Chill Mafia
Trap-punk from the lair
“We tend to rap in Basque so if the police come, they can’t understand us.” Aside from memorabilia and reunion tours, where has that radical Basque rock energy of the 80s gone? The answer is Chill Mafia, an ever-shifting collective that connects the rogue nihilism of Eskorbuto with that of Pxxr Gvng. Half in Basque, half in Spanish; half punk, half trap, some of its most active members will visit "Subsol" to talk to us about an independent phenomenon that continues to gain followers—the video for “Barkhatu” has close to half a million views, and that’s only on Youtube. Beñat, Sara, Irene and Ben Yart will be interviewed by Aïda Camprubí, conductor of Feeel at Betevé and proudly member of El Bloque.

El Jueves it's no longer what it was
Mamen Moreu, Maribel Carod, Ana Belén Rivero and Irene Márquez
“The Friday Girl” was a magazine segment featuring images of nude women accompanied by captions of outdated humour that, during its first years ruling the newsstands, could be found in the pages of El Jueves, the longest-running humour magazine in Spain. Since a while back, the satirical publication began offering space to current movements and concerns—feminism, environmentalism, anti-fascism—without ever abandoning the side-splitting humour that is part of its DNA, and it has done so alongside female authors such as Mamen Moreu, Maribel Carod, Ana Belén Rivero and Irene Marquez. The four artists will come together to talk about the wildest pieces of graphic humour of their respective careers, in a round table discussion moderated by Sílvia Aymí, part of the GRAF festival’s organisational team and a bookseller who specialises in comics at the Finestres bookstore.

Saïm
Emotional punk from Majorca
Their name sounds like ‘lard’ in Catalan, but Saïm are everything but unctuous. They’re a power trio from Felanitx/Manacor (Mallorca) who sing in Catalan and draw their influences from the world of Dischord/Washington DC and Touch & Go: deep, melodic and emotional punk rock. To "Subsol"’s ears they sound like Samiam and Seam and Jawbreaker, but others might point to Superchunk or Jawbox or Burning Airlines. And yet Saïm aren’t a tribute band. Over the course of three albums (the most recent of them, Fràgil, from 2021, is loaded with future pop hits such as “La mar gran” or “Autumne”) they’ve constructed their own sound, lyrics and rhythms, full of fierce choruses and songs of redemption and (melancholy) survival. Joan Roig (guitar, vocals) and siblings Natàlia (bass) and Daniel Gómez (drums) are only three people, but—as festival goers will verify—it seems like there are many more of them up on stage: Saïm are fierce and noisy.