Our iTunes is getting pretty tired of playing Nortinas War over and over and over again. But it’s Protistas‘ fault for making such an album, ripe with all the things we love: great lyrics, great vocals, great riffs, and great variety. Each song has its own identity yet all the songs are brothers and sisters, a hard feat for a band’s first album.
The Chilean quartet unveiled their beloved debut in 2010, an epic year for the Chile indie scene (as evidenced by the country’s massive overtaking of our Best Tracks of 2010 list). And Protistas brings a whole new element to the already burgeoning scene (as do most of Sello Cazador’s roster), playing songs that echo The Strokes (hear the album’s title track below), but digging deeper with sprawling tracks like “Nicaragua,” which was born from a bad breakup lead singer Alvaro Solar underwent. Nicaragua refers to the street in Santiago he and his now-ex lived on, which inspired the seven-minute, seventh track of the album: a beautiful, chaotic, and vulnerable production. It’s not all melancholy and emo, however. With Protistas you also get a touch of absurdity. Their name, according to Alvaro, is, well, we’ll let him explain it.
“Nos llamamos Protistas porque somos un reino, pero el más pequeño de todos los reinos donde hay un mini rey que saluda a sus subditos todas las mañanas y un pequeño sacerdote que los bendice. Es como un reino de seamonkeys que bailan elegantemente con traje de frac.”
These blessed seamonkeys are currently in the studio working on their followup with help from Astro lead man Andrés Nusser (a collaboration made in Latindie heaven!), and are scheduled to play at this year’s South by Southwest. Let’s hope their followup is a great one (if only to give our iTunes a break). But with Nusser on the case, we’re not worried.
Download Protistas’ “Incendio en mi corazón” and watch the video for the title track below.