Mexico City
One year ago, I landed in Mexico City for the first time of my life. After a wonderful Desert Daze in California, I was supposed to meet some fellow fuzzers to record a Diggin’ The Fuzz episode 😎
I was excited.
All started when I first got first in contact with Juan Tamayo & Roman Tamayo of Vinuum Sabbathi and LSDR Records (interviewed in the #1 Meet The Label Serie by Mr. Heavyhead here). The brothers are well known to be among the active players of the growing and talented Mexican fuzzy scene. I heard whispers they might want to come back to Europe in the coming future with their crushing Space Doom… 😈
I pitched them the idea to do an episode, and of course, they were in to try something!
We first needed to find a place to record the live session. Instantly Juan told me he maybe knew a place where we could do it.
A studio called Vesubio34, owned by no other than Miguel Fraino and his wife Samantha Ambrosio from the explosive duo Cardiel 🔥
Guess what? They were in to participate too! As the place to do the Diggin’ The Fuzz episode, and also, as a band to play live 👌. Miguel even offered me to stay sleeping at his home/studio during the recording session!
In the end Miguel also proposed to add 2 other bands to the session:
- Another renowned instrumental duo from the Mexican capital, with Javier Alejandre & Nicolás Detta forming Terror Cosmico (Mr. Heavyhead reviewed one of their albums).
- And Dia de Muertos, also from CDMX, a hard-hitting trio formed by Fernando Castillo Mendoza, Luis Fajardo and Víctor Gomez.
Recording Diggin' The Fuzz #4 @ Vesubio34
Pictures during the recording by Pedro Luis Salas 📸
Before hitting the studio, I went to do some headbanging and saw for the very first time Vinnum Sabbathi and 4 other great bands from the Mexican fuzzy scene.
The night after was another awesome gig with Earthless & Mars Red Sky in one of the biggest venue of the capital, Sala Puebla, that’s how you start a good journey!
I can tell you I was really impressed by the Mexico City fuzzy scene. A lot of great bands, a lot of actors spreading the fuzz, and most of all an audience for such music. Yep, the venue was almost full for the Earthless gig, I’d say at least 800 people.
And it was only the beginning of my journey.
After that came the time to settle down in Miguel’s studio, a big house with a wonderful live recording room, also perfect for shooting the 360° videos 👌 And a control room I’d die to have in my own house 😲
We scheduled 2 days to record 2 tracks per band.
First day would be Vinuum Sabbathi and Dia de Muertos. Second day would be Cardiel and Terror Cosmico.
LET THERE BE FUZZ ⚡
Vinnum Sabbathi
This day, one of the finest Doom band coming from Mexico was made of the usuals Tamayos brothers with Juan at the guitar and Roman at the FX/Synth, Samuel Lopez at the bass and Leonardo “Mico” Cardoso filling on the drums while the original drummer Gerardo Arión was in the UK.
Purveyors of the heaviest instrumental Space/Scfi Doom since 2012, you really can’t go wrong with Vinnum Sabbathi. With most of their songs above the 10-minute mark, be ready to embark in a soul-crushing trip inside massive black holes 🕳️ Now the question is: Will you ever come back to Earth after that? 🤔
They decided to play for the session their single “SpaceX: Falcon/Dragon” and another one from their recent split with Owain, “HEX III: Ex Luna, Scientia“.
Dia de Muertos
This trio is obviously named after the famous Mexican holiday of the “Day of The Dead“. The tradition is more about celebrating death than mourning it. For example, some families will let their house open for other neighbors to come in, and they’ll often build some private altars called ofrendas, honoring the deceased with food, beverage and various things that were close to them.
Funnily enough, I happened to be in Mexico City just for this celebration. In the capital, it especially gets a little bit crazier than in other parts of the country… Like a big carnival, people go out in the streets, dressed with the traditional calaveras outfits, lots of music and dancing, floats of various aspects rambling around the city. Here are some cool pictures I took to give you an idea how colorful the atmosphere was :
But let’s go back to Dia de Muertos, the band. These guys are not joking around, they blast a serious dose of instrumental stonerized Heavy Rock.
With an emphasis on a powerful fuzzy metallic sound for both the guitar and especially that gritty bass, you’ll also get some tight and loud drumming. The riffs will hit you in the face like a giant wrecking ball swaying in a tight room, you know you’ll be able to avoid it once or twice, but inevitably you know you’ll be doomed to take it in full force right between your two eyes 👊👀👊
They decided to play 2 tracks from their debut album (also recorded here at Vesubio34) : “Mexico” & “Copal”.
Cardiel
Just recently back from their first venture in Europe (with apparently an awesome appearance at Sonic Blast Moledo), Samantha & Miguel are clearly one of the hottest duo of Mexico, and I’d even say of the whole fuzzy scene 😲🔥
Stoner Rock with a big punkish attitude, on one side you have Samantha who hits her drums harder and tighter than any other big boy out there, yep it’s quite impressive as you’ll see in the 360° videos 👊 And on the other side you have Miguel going totally crazy, both in his angry vocals and in his powerful riffs.
They played 2 tracks from their last EP “Aloha From Fuzz”, “Antiglesia” with its unpredictable but still interesting Dub part (yep Dub 😉) and “Benzederina“.
Terror Cosmico
Picture their music of as an ancient Mexican salsa sauce recipe, that Terror Cosmico would have found, in a black wooden chest, at the bottom of the ocean… 🔮
Even if the recipe is complex to execute and rich in ingredients the guys want to try it.
A dose of Post-Metal, another of Sludge, sprinkle some Stoner, some Doom and Noise Rock in there…
And when you try it with your favorite tacos, the taste is definitly amazing, so you eat a lot of tacos 🌮. But be careful. You’ll soon find yourself surrounded by a deep feeling of despair, an unknown crushing heaviness on your soul, caged in your own scary nightmares.
Yup, this is the Terror Cosmico salsa sauce, and this is how I would describe their music 😈
They decided to play for us “Kronosaurus” taken from their last album “III”, and an unreleased song titled “Nigromancia“.
We had such a great time doing this Diggin’ The Fuzz session, and I can’t be thankful enough to all these super cool dudes you can see above (Though we miss Sam, Javier, Nicolas and Pedro in this pic…) for going all in into doing this, without hesitation and just for the love of spreading their music 💛
For me this was only an introduction to the Mexican Fuzzy scene, after this I continued hanging out with most of these guys, visiting the city, going to some more gigs (Thou + Terror Cosmico + Chivo Negro and Rivers Of Gore + Electric Mountain + La Maquinaria Del Sueño + La Prístina Stereotipia), being invited to a rehearsal of Weedsnake…
What surprised me the most I think is the number of bands sharing some common members among them. Samuel from Vinnum also plays in Rivers of Gore, Javi from Terror, Juan from Vinnum and Mico play together in Fumata, Fernando from K. also plays in Weedsnake… These guys are hardcore, they really can’t get enough fuzz to satify their soul 😲⚡😲 I really recommend you to check all of them out as they’re each delivering fuzz of the highest quality 👌
Now my Mexican trip was far from over, I’d continue visiting the country by going to the 2nd largest city, Guadalajara, and also meet with some more actors of the scene, then to Monterrey to meet Hector alias Mr. Heavyhead in real life for the first time! But these are other stories and this article is already getting long… All of this to say I fell in love with Mexico and the Mexicans themselves, I’ll be back that’s for sure 😎
Listen, Watch & Support Diggin' The Fuzz #4 in Mexico City
Now after telling the story around this Diggin’ The Fuzz, it’s your time fuzzers to experience it!
You have 2 ways to dig into the fuzz :
- In audio
- In 360° video
With the 4 bands, we decided it’d be cool to have something for everybody, that means both free & paid access.
So 1 track out of 2 for each band will be available totally for free on Bandcamp & YouTube. If you want to listen/watch the 2nd track you’ll have to show your support and open up your wallet 😉
It’s set as “Name Your Price” on Bandcamp, so feel free to give whatever you can/want. We’ll split the revenue between each of the parties involved, that means the 4 bands, the studio and More Fuzz. So a suggested price would be at least 6€ so that each of us get 1€ out of this, but hey you do as you can/like, and each participation will be welcomed 🙏
Artwork by Leonardo “Mico” Cardoso who filled the drums for Vinnum Sabbathi during this session and who is also a talented tattoo artist
And here are the 4 free 360° videos to live the recording as if you were right in the middle of the live room. To get the 4 remaining videos you’ll have to buy the album on Bandcamp and we’ll share with you the private YouTube links in a text file when you download the album.
Make sure to select the highest quality possible.
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