Since the mid-twentieth century, every great historical moment has had its record. And it is curious to see how those who have best told what was happening were not the most explicit or obvious. In the subtext, in the choice of melodies, in the dominant rhythm ... there is the description of a time and its circumstances. That is why, in the future, we will end up returning to the great sphere of The Blue House to know what happened in Catalonia in the second half of this decade. Because although there are no direct references to procés or 1-O, the sensitivity of Guille Milkyway (Barcelona, ​​1975) is able to tell us many things without wanting to pronounce them .

Yes, Guille is Catalan and, yes, it is one of those that some call equidistant twisting the nose. But that's not important. What's more is that in the eight years that have elapsed since Southern Polynesia (2011) and this album of which we now speak as one of the hallmarks of 2019, his way of seeing music has collapsed with respect to reality surrounding. The pop capital and overwhelming of his previous works are still there, perhaps less than boite sixties and more than a disco of the 2000s (It could be worse), but the way of making us dance changes.

Yes, Guille likes Ultravox's Dancing with tears in my eyes , but he wants us to think about why we are crying, he and us. It will not be for disappointment (The end of eternal love), because in this world naivety has become too precious a good to be available to all people. It will not be due to the lack of stimuli or dreams to reach ( No one could ever fly ), nor the possibility of shouting to the world what is happening to us.

And yes, Guille is worried about the way we communicate. Both in the aspect of the masses and in the daily life of a marriage crisis . Hence the title of this masterpiece that combines the lack of contention with the humility of those who are constantly reviewing and thinking if what they have done is a disaster that someone will ever like.

This may be applicable to Catalonia, to debates about the role of citizens in society or to any other conflict of this beginning of the century in which the information accumulated and within reach of the hand seems more an obstacle to our development than a help.

"The sphere," explained Guille himself in this newspaper, "has to do with this idea of a representation of the refuge, the place where you isolate yourself ." Since I was little, his relationship with the world has not been easy: «I have found it a complicated place, I consider it aggressive. I have tended to the shelter all my life and to look for it within the sphere. But of course, that at the same time, implies a total existential loneliness. And the isolation is also aggressive in the long run ».

Without even knowing “where is the balance between refuge and feeling lonely”, the author of The Sexual Revolution (2007) is today “at that intermediate point, of being in a sphere that has a door ”, even if he is aware of that, "unfortunately, the spheres are airtight." For him, «this idea would be great if you enter the sphere for a little while and then come out again. But when we get confined, it is hard for us to get out again and when we are out we have trouble getting back in.

Why do we fight? Frank Capra wondered in the title of a series of propaganda documentaries made during World War II. The answer to the question invariably referred to the other, to the enemy. But on this album Guille asks us the same question - of course, without saying it - and stopping at it so that we understand a broader sense: why is it worth fighting for? It is there where the moment appears, one of those emotional hiroshimas in which the couple's crisis of a marriage with children (that of Guille, that of any of us) is an excuse, not to make sentimental exhibitionism, but to test ourselves from how far we are able to endure or fight for what we want. «Always, but especially in this album, I tried to be a manners, to use every day. I want a song that is close to when I go every day in the morning with my friend from the bar for coffee and I tell him how it is. I don't want there to be much distance between my song and that conversation, ”says Guille. «Like the Housemartins and groups like that. Because you avoid that pornographic thing of simply talking about lightly intimacy . Nobody is interested in that. What does matter, as he has proven, is something else: that what people look for in my songs is their own life.

That is to say, the eternal balance between escapism and facing reality revolves around this sphere that is not the most round disk of the Blue House (that would already curl the curl too much, while still circling the circular metaphors) , but he who leaves the most. The good commercial result (for what have been the standards of a project that has crossed the desert of the Spanish indie desert) confirms what Guille needed for so long: an acknowledgment that proves that yes, that the masses are not so dehumanized Nor are they so masses. That we are people, perhaps locked in our own sphere, but spinning around each other .

Expert votes

TOMÁS FERNANDO FLORES

1. The great sphere , of The Blue House.

2. Joterias Bobas , from Hidrogenesse.

3. Courtship Manual , by Rodrigo Cuevas.

4. Witchcraft , of the Well Beloved.

5. Let's go crazy , by Leon Benavente.

SANTI CARRILLO

1. Broken hat , from Kiko Veneno.

2. New Force, New Force

3. The great sphere , of The Blue House.

4. Joterías Bobas , of Hidrogenesse

5. Per la bona gent , by Manel.

DARÍO PRIETO

1. Sensations , by Sen Senra.

2. Porvenir , by Le Parody.

3. Carolina During , by Carolina During

4. The great sphere , of The Blue House.

5. Ender Summer in Peckham , Reykjavik606.

WHITE LETICIA

1. Collection of songs , by Lorena Álvarez.

2. Living on Mars , by Lidia Damunt.

3. Lend me a feeling , Cupid.

4. Amazing advances , from The Children of Thunder

5. Kevin , from Ferran Palau.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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