Le Mans

Reissue in vinyl format for the 25th Elefant Records Anniversary

Numbered Limited Edition of 500 copies in LP format **This vinyl includes a free digital MP3 download [320 kbps] **CD Digipak edition clicking HERE

"25th ELEFANT RECORDS ANNIVERSARY" COLLECTION [Issue 004 of 025]

In honor of our twenty-fifth anniversary in 2014, we told you that we were going to celebrate it by re-releasing some of our most representative albums from these firs…

Reissue in vinyl format for the 25th Elefant Records Anniversary

Numbered Limited Edition of 500 copies in LP format **This vinyl includes a free digital MP3 download [320 kbps] **CD Digipak edition clicking HERE

"25th ELEFANT RECORDS ANNIVERSARY" COLLECTION [Issue 004 of 025]

In honor of our twenty-fifth anniversary in 2014, we told you that we were going to celebrate it by re-releasing some of our most representative albums from these first 25 years of Elefant Records, as well as offer some exclusive releases. There will be 25 releases, including a documentary about the label, as well as a book. The re-releases of FAMILY’s “Un Soplo En El Corazón” and LA BIEN QUERIDA’s “Romancero” have already come out, and we’ve also released a very special homage to FAMILY’s legendary album. Now three new releases have arrived from this unique collection that, little by little over the next few years, will be completed.

First, that masterpiece, the beginning of a legend. In October, we are releasing LA CASA AZUL’s first album, “El Sonido Efervescente De La Casa Azul”, again. But we’re not just releasing it, we’re pulling out all the stops: on this double vinyl, we are including all the demos and takes that we included in the previous re-release on CD, and on top of that we’re adding six live songs recorded at a party for the radio program “Viaje A Los Sueños Polares” in Madrid’s Aqualung club in May, 2000. That’s 27 songs total for a really juicy re-release that also celebrates the 15th anniversary of the original release of an album that made so many things happen. In November, we are re-releasing “Fonorama”, COOPER’s first full-length album. It is an impeccable collection of songs that showed pretty clearly what line Álex Diez’s post-FLECHAZOS career was going to follow, and which, ultimately, identified a sound that has always been his own. This vinyl re-release will also include two tracks previously unreleased in this format (“Sara Tiene Un Secreto” and “Canción de Cuna #2”), and which were previously available on the CD-Single “Vértigo”, but had never been released on vinyl before. November will also be the month for the re-release of LE MANS’ “Entresemana”, their second album and one of the albums we definitely feel most proud of. This re-release felt necessary: songs like “Perezosa Y Tonta”, “Con Peru En La Playa” and “Mejor Dormir” seem like they were created to feel their notes played by the needle of a record player, like a summer sunbather who lets the sand at the beach caress their back. That is why we thought it was important for this album to be released in this format, and remastered.

And in the coming months we will have re-releases from LA CASA AZUL, NIZA, THE SCHOOL, LOS FLECHAZOS...

LE MANS “Entresemana”

LE MANS’ second album is iconic in Elefant Records’ discography. Maybe all of the albums from this group from San Sebastian are, but each in its own different and identifying way. “Entresemana” was the step between “Le Mans” and “Saudade”, but above all it was the album on which the group fronted by Ibon Errazkin and Teresa Iturrioz payed tribute to minimalist pop, with beyond perfect string arrangements; slippery but free touches of jazz; and that concept of melody that is so specific to them and so open and fragile but also unpredictable; the album that put them at the head of that train that vindicated the music of VAINICA DOBLE.

“Entresemana” seems like an album dedicated to laziness - laziness as pleasure, as emotion, and motivation. That which has never been seen. Hedonism taken to its quintessence, with traditional airs full of an irony that magisterially mixed sweetness and bitterness. They show this in lines like, “Está bien pasear y hablar” (“It’s nice to walk and talk”) from the song “Con Peru En La Playa”), “Me pongo la bufanda y empiezo a pasear / Saludo a los amigos, tengo tiempo para perder / Voy caminando a la hora del café, piso despacio, es fácil resbalar” (“I put on my scarf and start walking / I say hi to my friends, I have time to waste / I take a walk when it’s time for coffee, slow steps, it’s easy to slip”) from the song “A La Hora Del Café”, “Me gusta nadar temprano a las diez / En un día así / Poderme secar este bañador / Y vuelta a nadar” (“I like swimming early at ten / On a day like this / Let my bathing suit dry / And swim again”) from “Entresemana”, and “No apetece cocinar / Mejor dormir” (“Who feels like cooking / It’s better to sleep”) from “Mejor Dormir”.

The album smells like the sand from La Concha beach, it has a breath of the breezes that come over Monte Igueldo, and makes this paused contemplation and exercise in intense beauty, refined by superb string arrangements that push these songs that feel sometimes like they might break but which, when you realize it, are actually holding onto you with all their strength.