sing Alaska in the new ‘single’ of fangoria‘A little bit of everything’, that “the concrete does not interest / discreet people go to the general”. And that’s why he defends the lie as “a necessary social weapon” to avoid that we are all killing each other every day for an excess of frankness. “When they ask you ‘how are you?’, do you honestly expect me to tell you how my last year has been? No, right?” she muses. “Or when an artist asks you to tell him what you thought of his latest album,” adds Nacho Canut. “I have never asked anyone that in my life. I wouldn’t even think of it!”
Starting from that principle of civilized coexistence, whether through euphemism, omission or pious trolling, Fangoria consummates the five-song epé ‘Ex profeso’, with which he closes a trilogy now packaged under the title ‘Entre paréntesis’. Cycle of short albums that Canut compares to the memorable epés ‘Un día cualquiera en Vulcano’ (1992-95), and behind which the unknown looms. Will they rearm their search for new sounds after the aforementioned parenthesis? “We have never been sound seekers,” warns Canut. “We’ve always heard new music and wanted to sound like Boney M, or Gary Glitter, or the Sex Pistols, or The Beloved, or Orbital… It’s that, more than search for new sounds”.
Miley Cyrus y el rock’n’roll
In ‘Ex profeso’ that mutant song appears again whose title always begins with ‘Satanism, abstract art and…’, this time completed with a quote from the New York Dolls. On other occasions, the epilogue pointed to rock’n’roll, techno-pop or acid house. Everything comes from that exhibition at the CCCB, ‘La llum negra’, about the influence of “secret traditions” in art, recalls Alaska. “We thought of a few things that have been demonized, and this time we put ‘the’ New York Dolls, because you have to see the criticism they suffered in their time”. After all, glam does come back periodically, right? There are Måneskin, of course. “And Britney (Spears) or Miley (Cyrus). They all have some song with a glam beat to it,” she observes. Before the daughter of country bard Billy Ray Cyrus, everything is admiration. She “She’s a rock’n’roll star. The Sandra Dee of the 21st century”.
It gives the feeling that the second youth of Alaska and Nacho Canut stretches indefinitely, flying over fashions and trends. “It’s like floating in the Dead Sea. A little worrying”, she slides humorously, although, for him, it is “a very comfortable moment”. In addition, they are delighted with the evolution of the musical canon in Spain. “The techno bases that Quevedo uses with BZRP, and Rojuu, and Depresión Sonora, which are like Sisters of Mercy,” says Alaska. “Y those girls that I likethe ‘aitanas’, ‘anas menas’… All of this is very close to us”.
More important than Bowie
And there they continue their high references of always, like Michael Jacksonwhose ‘Thriller’ has turned 40 these days. They estimate that the culture of cancellation, which has punished a Woody Allen, has not reached him as much (as a result of accusations of sexual abuse) “because he is dead”, simply and simply. “If he were alive, no one would release a record and he couldn’t do concerts”, adventure Alaska. In front of her effigy it is convenient to square oneself, Canut comes to say. “Michael is ultra-important in music history, more even than Bowie. All those stars: Beyoncé, Drake… They are Michael. He was a absolute pioneer”.
We are lucky to have Canut in this interview, as he says he is retiring from the media. “Because here we are talking about music. But what need is there to say things that later on the networks will haunt you for two weeks? Why take risks?” she muses. Even Alaska has cut back on her appearances, she says. “I no longer do debates. it doesn’t compensate me”. His gaze is fixed on the tour they will undertake in March. “They will be concerts, not a tour,” the singer points out. “We are like the folkloric, who did not tour. Open contracting”.