April 25, 2018 - Galaxia - La Noticia (1971)

Hoy presento una canción de España por Galaxia llamada La Noticia.
Today I present a song from Spain by Galaxy called The News...it's a song about how cool The News were before they started hanging around Huey Lewis. You know, back when they were singing about the moon.

According to the liner notes from the compilation Andergraun Vibrations!, Galaxia were an "Andalusian band...from the beautiful Sevilla city, home also of one of the most important Spanish underground bands, the legendary Smash." And, of course, flamenco!*

La Noticia opens with a sustained high D on electric guitar (you could go and have a bite and you'd still be hearing that one), held aloft by shimmering cymbals and pulsating bass. After ten seconds, the wah wah starts running on fumes, so the flamenco hand-clappers, los palmeros, enter the scene to provide encouragement. At 0:25, the music begins to speak to itself, organ comes in at 0:36, I think there are probably some castanets in there, then the tempo picks up at 0:42, and awayeeayy we go. Whatever Spanish I can hear through all the vowel stretches doesn't help me figure out the entire meaning of the song. Hey man, all that matters is it sounds cool. Psychedelic Sevilla!

At the end of the liner notes about Galaxia, the author wrote: "sadly, one of their members lost his head and can be seen today around Sevilla walking semi-naked and talking to the cars." That is sad. Makes me think of Skip Spence.

*(Note to self: why haven't you looked into this legendary band Smash?)