Pato Patín – Afilando el Humor

Artist: Pato Patín

Title: Afilando el Humor

Release: Tape / Digital

Year: 2021

Label: Imperecedero Discos

It was around 2011 or 2012 when I first heard of Pato Patín. At the time I was trying to finish school and was barely holding myself up. I had left my home for months, my life was a mess and I didn’t knew what to do. Everything felt heavy and weird. I couldn’t count the days clearly. And amongst all the dizziness and strangeness I found a little EP that caught my eye on Youtube. Barely over the 13 minute mark, I reached it through some punk Blogspot page from 2010, which I can no longer remember. I just carelessly clicked on the link not knowing what to expect. I knew I wanted “something else”, something different from what I was listening at the time (mostly emotional hardcore, emoviolence and whatnot). And I was surprised, happily surprised. What I heard talked to me in many ways, which I didn’t know I wanted to be talked to. I felt like each of the 5 songs were addressed, or so it seemed, to people like me!

“Sobre el alambre” had in its folk punk spirit, carefully crafted lyrics and candid closeness something comforting what I needed at that moment. It was simple, but multi-layered at the same time, something clearly reflected on the mysterious yet everyday album cover. In these days I listened to it a lot and some friends also discovered the album, which helped me enjoy it even more. Years later, I don’t remember exactly when, I managed to see him live and it was a great experience. I only remember it was at a punk show and that everyone just sat on the floor and listened quietly. It was nice to share that moment with many people from different places as I continued to do so in the following years and I saw him play live again and again.

I’m not from the school of those who spit

But boy, have I been spitting a lot on this depressing world lately

That’s one of my favorite lines from that EP and it’s from the opener Cianuro (Cynide). It manages to sum up most of the emotions, which are strongly present in the record and that would later return in his music.

A split with Diego Discordia, guitarist in the Chilean hardcore punk band Abolición (who split up in 2013 but had a reunion show at the end of 2018), came out in 2012 and then one with Luis Baumann (who plays in Fusibles, from Argentina), called Viaje Adentro, appeared in 2016.  He also played with some bands, like Viejo En Bici (who released the great No Hay Reacción in 2016), La Crisis Mundial and El Incendiario, among many other things he did. If it’s your first time hearing about him, you’ve got some interesting stuff to delve into! It’s quite a journey. But enough about the past, let’s see what the present has to offer to our restless (and I hope clean and tinnitus-free) ears.

Afilando el Humor is Pato Patín’s first official LP. It was released by Imperecedero Discos (who already had some appearances in DIY Conspiracy and definitely will have more in the future) and it features 10 tracks. Four of them are re-recorded pieces from his split with Luis and the other six are previously unreleased tracks, which he has been playing live for a while. All of them were recorded and engineered between 2014 and 2016 and carefully preserved until now, for all of us to enjoy in digital format and on tape (for which the music was specially mastered in Leipzig, Germany).

About the album, Pato says: “I hope it helps me close a cycle [to let me] keep creating under new influences, ideas and feelings, even though, deep inside, you always keep being a little of what you’ve always been and [I know] I’ll always keep with me a part of all of this”.

If you’ve heard what he’s done before and compare it you’ll understand his words, as you’ve been hearing and reading his lyrical and musical passage, always overflowing, heart in hand,  through each release.

It’s easy to compare his sound to other musicians like Homage To Catalonia (Kadd Stephens from Washingtong, DC) and Producto Interior Bruto (Jesús from Madrid, Spain), but there’s more to it than mere comparisons and genre tags. Sure, we can talk about folk tradition and its mingling with punk, about Violeta Parra and La Polla Records, about anarchism or the life of Luisa Toledo, who recently passed away. All of those things are part of the world contained within the album, firmly tied through influence, inspiration and dialogue, but they are not all that there is about it. Not at all. The hypnotic pulse of the guitar echoing softly, but vividly, solid as the ringing of the strings, holds so much more in them. Note by note, an architecture of honesty woven with wounds and fragments of memories welcomes us as we go through the album tracklist. From there, there’s so many pathways we can take depending on our personal history, our relation with ourselves and everything outside us. The album works as a companion in our voyage through life.

Rotten mouths

Destroyed my ears

Slowly whispering

That everything’s real fine

I could just shut up and quote the lyrics of the songs for the rest of the review. Everything that’s needed to be said is said in them and I know my words won’t make them any justice. But that’s just how I experience it, one of the many ways to do so. So don’t get me wrong, even with the big, strong barrier of language, you can still get so much out of it and experience something different. Don’t let it push you away, let it make you feel closer. Music is one of the most abstract forms of art and as such it lets us engage with it in many, many ways, employing whatever mechanisms suit us best in each situation. There’s an essence, a vibe, in the strum and the diction, in the mix of the rhythm and the cadence of the ambience. We can’t exactly point what it is, but we know there’s something in there. We hear it with our ears, not always clearly, but we know it is always present.

This new album shows Pato a bit different from before, yet he still feels very familiar. It doesn’t feel like neither repetition nor change. It’s a mixed state in constant flux, very much like our lives. I’m not the same person I was when I first heard his music and I’ve managed to relate to, it beyond his words, chord progressions and melodies, in many ways through the years.  Like him, I’m a nomad always on the move. No land is my land, but I still manage to find a bit of comfort, a pair of warm hands, a bit of time for reflection, in every zone I pass through. I hope one day I can tell my history just like he does.

If you want a copy of this album (available in limited clear orange tape with fold out j-card including lyrics) or of any of the other releases by the label, you can contact them at [email protected]

Source: diyconspiracy.net