Föllakzoid
II

LA RECENSIONE

"So, there's an architect, an event organizer, a documentary filmmaker, and a photographer living in Santiago, Chile, who decide to set off for the cosmos using German-made motorik rhythms as fuel (brand NEU! Obviously)."

It sounds like a joke, but the Föllakzoid are precisely the four figures described above, the latest discovery in musical ethnotourism by New York's Sacred Bones. In fact, not content, the New Yorkers have also recruited (seems absurd, like a supermarket bargain) another group from Santiago, the Holydrug Couple, the Latin version of Tame Impala.
We talked about this months ago while reviewing the Goat, of how nowadays the few novelties, or rather “curiosities”, of the current music market, often come from countries outside the usual UK-USA axis. Which is definitely a good thing, considering that musical production outside the aforementioned axis has always existed, but now is decidedly more accessible. Just think about how little German music (the third largest music market in the world after the USA and UK, not Benin) was known internationally until 20 years ago.

Of course, the other side of the coin of this geographic expansion sometimes seems cunningly "sought after" and a bit opportunistic, a thought like “a Chilean krautrock album sells more than a Californian garage album.” Luckily, this is not the case.
The four Chileans show their proficiency in handling robotic rhythms, vintage keyboards full of space blob effects, mantra-like bass lines, and perpetually delayed guitars, along with an indistinct mumble akin to Wooden Shjips/Moon Duo. Tracks like “9” are the perfect example of this.

If their merits stopped here, I would have moved on. Instead, Follakzoid manage, somehow, to make the whole thing less cold. If it didn’t make me laugh just to think about it, one could define them as “kraut-latino”, but I’ll go no further, because I'm already spitting in my own face. Yet it is, unfortunately, the closest descriptor for a track like “Rio”, mechanical, yes, with the rhythm going in circles, ok, but with a warm, beating heart.
And then they place at the end of the 5 tracks, the 15 minutes of “Pulsar” which seem like a rave party between Orion and Saturn, while gusts of synth and six-string lashes try to revive us from an encephalic collapse. Brilliant track, period.

Inner-cosmos navigators, be warned, next stop Santiago, Chile.