The opening track of ‘Digs’, this brave, uncompromising and downright rocking new mini-album by Mexican-American sound voyagers Allá, is a short, sharp mainline surge of Kraut-pop called ‘Si Se Puede’ - Spanish for ‘Yes we can’. It’s a phrase you might recognise from the news lately... but it also works here as a righteous call-to-arms for what follows: five audacious cover versions, recorded mostly live and with minimal post-production, through which the Chicago-based band pay respect to a diverse list of artists and songs that have helped bring their unique musical vision into focus.

But that’s not all: if the debut Allá album ‘Es Tiempo’ saw shades of Tropicalia, Motown, jazz, lounge and more mixed up to form a lush, dreamy pop palette, this new (old) material showcases what Allá become in the live setting, as will soon be evidenced throughout the US and Europe: a loud, proud, free-range rock band, sweetly insistent melodies set ablaze by raw psychedelia, thundering rhythms and ecstatic frenzies of guitar-led improvisation recalling early, droney Stereolab and peaktime Can (founding members Jorge & Angel Ledezma toured with Damo Suzuki, you may recall). On stage, and here on the thrilling blast of sonic archaeology that is ‘Digs’, Allá come alive. Do you dig?




Track listing

1. Si Se Puede (Allá, 2008)
2. New Hymn (The Residents, 1982)
3. Church of Anthrax (Terry Riley & John Cale, 1971)
4. Smog (Los Dug Dugs, 1972)
5. It's A Rainy Day, Sunshine Girl (Faust, 1972)
6. Love Lockdown (Kanye West, 2008)