Song of the Day: Sudakistan - Concrete Djungle

Every Monday through Friday, we deliver a different song as part of our Song of the Day podcast subscription. This podcast features exclusive KEXP in-studio performances, unreleased songs, and recordings from independent artists that our DJ’s think you should hear. Today’s song, featured on the Morning Show with John Richards, is “Concrete Djungle” by Sudakistan from the 2015 album Caballo Negro out November 20th on PNKSLM Recordings.

Sudakistan - Concrete Djungle (MP3)

Stockholm-based Latino garage rockers Sudakistan have been wowing audiences with their powerful live performances since 2012. With all five members having ties to South America, the influence of their ancestry pulsates through the percussion, with a hypnotic bassline and fuzzy guitars woven throughout.

This Friday, we finally get the full-length debut from the raucous quintet, titled Caballo Negro, out this Friday on PNKSLM. Label founder Luke Reilly and producer Joakim Åhlund (frontman of Caesars) have sculpted their raw psych-rock into a vibrant, textured whirlpool of guitars and afrobeat percussion. In an interview with Totally Stockholm, vocalist/guitarist Michell Serrano said, "We tried a lot of new stuff in the studio that we weren’t used to, but we also tried to keep the ‘wild’ thing, the energy from our live shows. It was also our first album recording session, so we didn’t know a lot of the technical stuff. It was cool to get to explore that. But we knew that we wanted to keep the energy. It’s hard, because when we play live we have this energy. That’s especially important to us, we feel it’s an extra special part of our band. We wanted to keep that power in the record. Jocke (Åhlund, co-producer) knew that we had to have that in the record. So, I think that we succeeded in keeping that."

There's no North American tour dates scheduled yet, but you can follow the band on Facebook and Twitter. Check out the video for another album track below, "Mundo Mamon." The clip was directed by the band's bassist, Maikel Gonzalez.