The Sticker against "the dictatorship of speed"

Barcelona"A lot is demanded in a very short time. It's the dictatorship of speed: you have to release a song, and then another, and a video, and do a promotion... I don't know if it's very productive. Perhaps the approach should be different," says Axel Magnani, La Pegatina's trumpeter. "And the platforms ask you for more songs because they position you better, and collaborations. It has been conveyed to us that we have to be viral and stand out continuously," adds singer Adrià Salas. "This time we've made an album cooked more slowly, without the stress of having to go into the studio every now and then," explains guitarist and singer Rubén Sierra. They come from almost another era. In fact, La Pegatina was born over twenty years ago in Montcada i Reixac, on the street and under the shelter of that quintessential mestizo Barcelona sound. And they seem to be pursuing precisely that foundational spirit on the album Fuego del barrio (Calaverita-Música Global), which this Friday, May 29th, they present live at the Poble Espanyol.

"We wanted to sound like the street, direct, natural, raw," says Sierra about an album that arrives four years after Hacia otra parte (2022). And to sound like that, they've made songs they enjoy playing live. "That they bring us something and that people can like. That's why there are no slow songs. It's all danceable," informs Salas.

In the first songs of the album, those origins resonate quite transparently. For example, the trace of Mano Negra and Los Fabulosos Cadillacs in Con este fuego. "We have it very integrated, and sometimes it depends on how we dress it up with the production. And this time the producer is the Mexican Camilo Lara, who shares many references with us – admits Salas –. All of this is noticeable in the more rumba-style tracks, like La voltereta, inspired by the sound of Ojos de Brujo, and Venpayá, which is more connected to Catalan rumba, but also in others like Rómpela, which are more ska." There is also a nostalgic look at childhood in Del barrio soy, when, as Salas says, "with creativity and few resources, incredible things were done." It's the reality that some lived in Montcada i Reixac and those, like Magnani and accordionist Romain Renard, experienced in the town where they grew up, near Rennes, in Brittany. "We are all from the periphery, and we had a lot of popular culture in common," assures Magnani.

Children of the mix, La Pegatina also have anti-racism and confrontation against far-right discourse integrated into their core. They make it explicit in Brinca!, the only song on the album sung in Catalan, which walks with tropical cadences. "When we started, our references were the result of the mix, of musicians from diverse backgrounds who came together and made music. I find it very enriching," says Salas. When they started, they also suffered "a bit from impostor syndrome". "Even though we didn't have academic musical training, we were doing well, while there were people who played much better and had studied who weren't doing as well. There has always been this pressure to earn respect, and we managed by working twice as hard," recalls Salas. They noticed a different pressure before releasing Fuegos del barrio. "Returning after a year off meant having to do something bigger, having to work triple to keep moving forward," adds the singer. Moving forward at their own pace, fleeing from "the dictatorship of speed".