Delayed due to their unusual and ill-fated relationship with the Polar label, Cancer Moon’s second album arrived in 1992. The dubious dealings of their previous company had significantly increased the band’s prejudices with regards to the music industry. The intimacy of the bubble in which they lived triggered their suspicions towards label owners, bigwigs and anyone who tried to intervene in the nourishing and destiny of one of their children, their songs. However, they never censored producer King Pharaoh, a regular collaborator of Munster at the time. Although in fact, the Frenchman from Bordeaux stuck to handling the desk and mixing while band members Jon Zamarripa and Josetxo Anitua took charge of a quick and cheap production work in which they sacrificed the bigger clarity of their previous album for a meatier sound. That sonic hyper rawness stressed the idea among music journalists that Cancer Moon were the fathers of Spanish noise. But they weren’t such thing, or at least they weren’t aware of it. The truth was that Zamarripa was that type of instinctive and visceral guitar player, more magical than skilled, who had been brought up on mid-70s proto-punk. He would create a tangled mess when playing which was utilised on this album more than ever before, which resulted in that sonic wall that somebody described as noise. Listening to the album again, I’m especially surprised that the overused psychedelia tag comes to mind more than I remembered, a lot more than with their previous and next records. Even though I used to roll up joints for them while they were crafting these songs at Zamarripa’s house, I didn’t remember them sounding so trippy. And as memory often traces coherent connections, I’ve automatically remembered delirious listening sessions at night with Jon and some other friend when we would inevitable end up playing Screaming Trees lying on the floor, when our bodies had given in to the weight of the night, and we would float away night after night thanks to their hypnotic rock. Although we liked the whole Seattle sound and loved Mudhoney, our favourites were always the Trees, whom you’ll clearly recognize in these grooves. And forgive me for daring to make a comparison to such a unique band, but even in the moments when Cancer Moon sounded more similar, they always produced a distinctive element, which was Josetxo’s wonderful voice: powerful, persuasive, in total symbiosis with those contortionist guitars which were such a feature of the album. The band, especially at this time, were miles ahead not only of the so-called Getxo sound from which they enrolled backing musicians but also of many other bands from abroad. A final suggestion for anyone listening to this piece of history for the first time. “Flock, colibri, oil” has around 20 per cent of difficult, hard tracks which reflect the unconventional personalities of its creators. In order to get into their microcosm, there is no better way than watching the superb and illuminating video of ‘Solution’. Fernando Gegúndez