mueran hermanos: hospital lullabies

Since their last album Miseress at the end of 2015, Mueran Humanos have continued to expand their audience playing major festivals like Primavera Sound, sharing the stage with the likes of Swans, The Fall and Royal Trux, playing legendary venues like the Berghain main room, touring the world and completing a full European tour supporting The Horrors, hand-picked by the band themselves. They have also recently placed synchs on Netflix show Diablero and upcoming HBO paranormal comedy, Los Espookys (Fred Armisen) which is HBO's first entirely Spanish language series. For the uninitiated, Mueran Humanos, (Tomas Notcheff, Carmen Burguess), can be a tough one to explain. Their influences could be listed and they could be called 'a psychedelic-krautrock garage punk-electronics duo who manage to capture the rich cultural history and excitement of their adopted home of Berlin and infuse it with a sophisticated South American chic imported from their native Buenos Ares'. At their core, these are simple and catchy songs with a solid electronics foundation solidified by driving bass lines and textural keyboard parts. Vocals are shared by both members, and they create an important dichotomy between the masculine and feminine energies that shape the band. Spanish speakers are in luck, because the lyrics are surrealist poetry of the highest order. Thankfully for the everyone else, they occupy that special place reserved for bands like Einstürzende Neubauten, (Jochen Arbeit of EN actually appeared on the bands last album), or Os Mutantes, where they transcend language barriers and are capable of telling a story through the sheer power of the human voice. Hospital Lullabies is a companion piece to a movie of the same name directed by Carmen Burguess, and without question this is their most refined and cohesive statement so far. While there is a darkness to some of it (fleshed out by imagery of nightmares, childhood terrors, and the trauma of mental institutions), it is balanced by feelings of romance and optimism and an overwhelming sense of childlike wonder.