The videos that are on iTunes come with a special (physical) copy of the CD, which was released alongside the standard version. And although Amazon isn’t currently stocking either of these, you can already find them for sale on the Spanish eBay.

After the now familiar “16 Añitos” as the album opener, “Mira La Vida” emphasises that the rich rock combo sound is definitely going to be prevelant; a lush and powerful blend of chunky guitars, gutsy Hammond organ and big drums. And how well it suits Dani too… The songs sound so much his own, and bring to mind Jackson Browne more than El Canto Del Loco – and I mean that in a good way. A really good way.

Other songs like “Mi Lamenta” do have a ring of ECDL about them, but there’s never a time where you don’t feel like you’re genuinely listening to a proper solo project, something backed up by the addition of things like accordion and beefy brass sections.

And Dani also remind you with “El Cielo De Los Perros” that he’s very good with the volume down too; it’s a much subtler piece, with open spaces and a great balance of piano and strings and gentle percussion.

So, is it worth it? YEAH! Of course it is! Only £7.99 on the UK iTunes – and that includes the accompanying videos. Just click on the iTunes link here for all the info and download…

We’ve covered the release the “Castillo de Arena” single (and its excellent promo video) by David’s pet solo project El Pescao, along with keeping you in the loop on where to find Dani online via his official Facebook page and his official site/blog.
And since then the El Pescao album “Nada Lógico” has been released too (click here to jump to it in iTunes) – a great, lush album of beautiful songs and great arrangements mixing the top guitar work you’d expect with some surprisingly artful and complex electronics to build superb and catchy songs. Well worth shelling out for.

And now it’s Dani’s turn again; with him releasing the first single from his forthcoming album “Pequeño” along with a promo video – again, all available through iTunes for those of us more than a country or two away from a Spanish record shop.
The single is called “16 Añitos” – a solid rock ballad about growing up, not just in physical stature but in emotional maturity too. You can buy it on iTunes by clicking here.
Dani has also released a beautifully directed promo video for the song too with a counterpoint between himself now and a younger ‘him’. Again it’s available via iTunes and will look fab on your computer, your iPod , iPhone or iPad. Click here to buy and download.

The album itself – “Pequeño” – is released on October 26th, and will be accompanied by an extended tour that will go on into 2011.

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Also you can currently view a video over at the band’s official website of a video recorded at the Teatro Metropolitan in Mexico City for “Contigo” with Natalia Lafourcade, who performed the song with them on their last album “Radio La Colifata presents El Canto Del Loco.” Whilst the sound is far from perfect, it’s nonetheless a nice and interesting piece of video for any fan.

Don’t forget to keep up with the news on Dani Martin’s solo project – there’s an official page on Facebook and there’s also a new official website where you can sign up for news updates.
And you can order different versions of David Otero’s album – his solo project/band monicker is El Pescao including an exclusive edition with many goodies and personally signed – at the official El Pescao website.
You can also buy the single “Castillo de Arena” on iTunes – and the video too.

And let’s not forget Chema of course! He’s recently turned up on Facebook in a daft Where’s Wally type photolog. Bless…

The sound is a bit more electronic than your general expectation from ECDL, but also beautifully crafted and subtle with a catchy chorus hook and some lovely complimentary female vocals from singer Ana Cañas.

To buy the single “Castillo de Arena” by El Pescao, click here.

And here’s the video…
Enjoy!

El Pescao – Castillo de Arena from Watergun on Vimeo.

It’s really nice to see artists use the web and its various outputs in this way and it’ll be interesting to see how things develop across the year and hopefully to continue to get Dani’s take on it all.

Having said that, it’s not a period without activity as the band members are apparently filling their break with solo projects; something that should be very very interesting indeed.
We’ll try and fill you in on any news on this as we get it, and of course point you to all the release and download info once the albums are released.

For now, we just have to be a bit patient. Dammit!

Given that El Canto Del Loco haven’t really been big on adding videos to their content on the iTunes Music Store (or certainly no kind of back-catalogue anyway, which would be a tremendously good idea…) it’s great to see that they have at least bunged a whole bunch of their greatest hits on there as videos in the form of clips taken from the “Radio La Colifata Presenta: El Canto Del Loco” DVD.

The DVD, which comes as part of a double release along with the main “Radio La Colifata Presenta: El Canto Del Loco” CD itself – in a beautifully packaged bundle – is of course a single film with a continuous narrative, following the band’s special sessions at the Jose Borda psychiatric hospital in Buenos Aires (and collaborations with fellow artists on some songs), but it is effectively chaptered by song anyway so it makes a certain amount of sense to break the songs out into discreet clips.

This outbreak of releases brings the roster of El Canto Del Loco videos on the iTunes Music Store to 19; or 20 if you include their collaboration with Lucas Masciano on “Me Gustas Cuando”.

Here’s an iTunes link to the videos…

If you didn’t get the CD/DVD bundle release, then do go treat yourself to these clips – they’re beautiful and uplifting and an absolute joy to watch.

“Por Mi Y Por Todos Mis Campañeros” to be fair, has been available on the iTunes Music Store for a few days now, although there’s still no “Radio La Colifata Presenta: El Canto Del Loco” (However, strangely, if you search for El Canto Del Loco in the search panel in iTunes, the title does actually show up – though it only leads to an empty result at present. Hopefully this means its on its way but not loaded up yet… we’ll let you know…)

Much of “Radio La Colifata Presenta: El Canto Del Loco” is in the vein of the latest single “Quiero Aprender De Ti” – in that the songs are largely delivered in a stripped-down semi-acoustic style; something which seems to work better on what are actually originally louder ‘rock’ songs like “Un Millon De Cicatrices”, “Personas” and “Corazon” rather than songs that were less full-on originally anyway (like “Ya Nada Volvera A Ser Como Antes” for example) – though all feel fresh with these revisited arrangements, and with guest appearances from the likes of Alejandro Sanz, and Leiva from the band Pereza.

Some of the treatments certainly also owe a lot to the way the band have handled some of the songs live – the touching version of “Puede Ser” for example, a beautifully understated “Llueve En Mi”, and “Besos” which keeps the live performance reggae leanings, although it’s obviously not got the pure grind of the live version.

Fittingly for a project that hinges on the groundbreaking psychiatric patient radio station from Buenos Aires, it’s a set that reminds you in every moment of the positive, healing life-affirming power of music in the world; and also fittingly part of the profits go back to Radio La Colifata.

*You can find out more about Radio La Colifata in this 2005 article from the BBC

“Por Mi Y Por Todos Mis Campañeros” on the other hand is essentially a covers album and a tribute album at the same time, with the band saluting the Spanish bands and songs that have been a part of the growing up and their development. Standouts for me would probably be “Mejor”, Años 80” and “Maria La Portuguesa”.

Both “Por Mi Y Por Todos Mis Campañeros” and “Radio La Colifata Presenta: El Canto Del Loco” come as special CD and DVD packages. Unless you have a particularly wonderful record shop near you I’d recommend getting onto Spanish eBay (ebay.es) and getting hold of them there; there’s some excellent sellers and despite Spain’s slightly excessive (international) postal fees and slightly slow delivery (though that could well be the UK side of things!) there’s no doubt whatsoever that this double double set is worth every penny / Euro.

Whilst the iTunes release of “De Personas A Personas” misses out on conveying the lush packaging – and the nifty extras like the little diary and most obviously the DVD full of promo videos and documentaries, it nonetheless provides the meat of the offering with the extra tracks, including the excellent “Vivir a Ras de Suelo”, “Quiero Ser” and “Madrid” – and it does also contain one of iTunes’ “digital booklets” which is basically a PDF of a selection of the photoshoot nudey artworks at a reasonably high resolution.

If I have any criticism it is that this is actually something of a missed opportunity to go the whole hog and be one of the first of the iTunes “LP” format releases, when they could have done the whole package of artworks, notes, studio diaries and videos as well as the extended album itself. That would have been a seriously brilliant offering and would have got their name right at the forefront of iTunes forward-looking products.
But that’s me being a bit over-fussy. You can’t complain at this coming out at all; it’s great to have the extra songs out there, and it can only add to their international profile.

My recommendation – get onto iTunes, here’s the album link… – buy it, leave feedback and ratings, and also email Apple and campaign for more ECDL releases up there anyway. Let’s ask them to get the “En Directo” series on in full and including the videos of the performances, and all the unreleased promo videos too.

For now though – an excellent addition