The band name, Diles Que No Me Maten, translates to “Tell them not to kill me.” That alone should perk up your ears before you even hear a note. When you press play on Escrito En Agua, the Mexico City band’s new album released this month, you may then be further intrigued by the funereal New Orleans jazz dirge that greets you. And when that song, “Las noches que dormimos en sillas,” leads you to “Hiriku,” you may wonder how you ended up traversing space and time to a Can show in Cologne in 1971. Any lingering confusion will soon give way to excitement about this wholly unique ensemble.
Escrito En Agua is Diles Que No Me Maten’s fourth LP, so those of us who are just tapping in have lots of catching up to do. But this album alone offers ample sonic territory to explore. It reminds me of the recent Winged Wheel record in the way it hops across subgenres, flitting between the abstract and immediate, scraping and churning with an unmistakable physicality yet never quite seeming of this earth. From the woodwind interlude “La rata modesta” to the eerie guitar piece “Kilómetros dentro de un túnel,” they’re capable of conjuring an aura without words or even percussion. And when they lock in and stretch out on the eight-minute psychedelic closer “Tunuwame,” they sound just as bewitching in full-band mode.
Hear what’s been written in water below.
Escrito En Agua is out now on Moonlight Activities. Buy it here.
