Last December, the catalan synthpop duo Hidrogenesse announced Roma, the long-awaited sequel to 2012’s Un dígito binario dudoso: Recital para Alan Turing. Inspired by the eponymous city, Roma is an ode to ruins, archeological sites, and old things in general. Ditching the conceptual mettle of their previous album — a biographical séance for Turing — this time around Genís Segarra and Carlos Ballesteros string together a bouquet of loosely related songs they had been working on since 2009 and pile them up on their LP just like layers of history, daily life, garbage, pop culture, kitsch, and even the uncanny, built upon each other in Rome.
But Hidrogenesse would not be Hidrogenesse if they didn’t give a mischievously sardonic spin to their ideas. Transtemporal chaos is alright and might even work as an album-driving idea itself, but the Catalans wanted to go the extra mile and decided to give each song a particular feel: a spy thriller, a horror story, an adventure film, etc. So, after teasing the album with the Kraftwerkian take on the Golem story of “El hombre de barro,” now the duo has shared a video for “A los viejos,” a paean for all things old and durable. With its bubbly synths, the track harkens back to Hidrogenesse’s Bestiola days, without stopping playing with 20th-century signifiers (feminism, the nouvelle vage, rock & roll, computers, etc.) like they did in their last couple of albums. You can watch the video for “A los viejos” below, which the band has described as “halfway between a superhero movie and a Power Point presentation.”
I’d be lying if I said you won’t be missing something if you can’t understand Hidrogenesse’s lyrics, and a video featuring a haggard looking couple of freaks hanging out in Barcelona’s least flashy winter locales may not be much of an argument, but Hidrogenesse has the credentials to claim the title of the most thrillingly inventive Spanish pop band of the past decade. They are definitely worth a shot. Roma is out on January 27 via Austrohúngaro.
Roma tracklisting:
01. Dos tontos muy tontos
02. A los viejos
03. Siglo XIX
04. ¿De qué se trata? (feat. Jérémie Orsel of Dorian Pimpernel)
05. Moix
06. El hombre de barro
07. Elizabeth Taylor
08. Escolta la tempesta
09. That International Rumor (feat. Joel Gibb of The Hidden Cameras)
10. Aquí y ahora
• Hidrogenesse: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Hidrogenesse/117697753386
• Austrohúngaro: http://www.austrohungaro.com
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