Pepito – The New World (Static)

The New World is Madrid based electronic pop band Pepito’ third album. And it’s a light and gentle affair that melds electronic techniques to pop’ melodic smoothness. Interestingly it’s also their first release that features an even split between English and Spanish vocals. Vocally the duo of Ana Machado and Jose Marquez come across with the same impassioned urgency of Sonic Youth, yet their sound palette owes more to a significantly more electronic Architecture in Helsinki. Though there’ a certain earnestness to their approach, a certain twee nature to the electronic sounds they use, yet there’ no cheekiness, if anything it’s a sweet sense of nostalgia. The experimentation is blanketed in such a warm glossy sound, in such confidence that its possible to listen to an entire track before you realise it was constructed with fractured beats, strange bleeps and shifting frequencies. And it’s the vocals that enable such sweet subterfuge, impassioned emotive cries of warmth and assuredness.