Maybe time works differently in Vilnius, Lithuania. El Chico Fuendre are from Vilnius and their album “Ragas for City Dwellers” duly drifts around your mind with each listen.
Five songs – wordless, of course - are what you get with three of them heading off into the land of the extended format with krautrock, psychedelic and John Carpenter movie soundtrack influences being worn proudly as badges of honour on this band’s musical journey. As you might well imagine, this album isn’t mood music and it is safe to say that no one would ever play mood music at the kind of volume that these songs deserve anyway. In fact, the louder you play them, the more coherent the melodic framework becomes and the more hypnotic those brooding synthesisers become. The sky might indeed be falling yet, such is the strength of musical purpose that El Chico Fuendre possess, you won’t need to ponder that until tomorrow.
El Chico Fuendre are clearly not purveyors of three minute pop songs nor are they so freeform that their appeal is limited to the posturing few but it does help to have an interest in the rambling rock sounds of the past to get where their particular brand of intellectual improvisation is coming from. Then again, there’s nothing wrong with a bit of history when you are a band who can make walls shake.
A vinyl version is available from Bandcamp and “Ragas for City Dwellers” does, in truth, sound like it belongs on vinyl. It’s a passing of time thing.