Quintessence of the best Nuggets-type of music from Europe, the scant discography of the Catalan band Los Nivram – just two obscure EPs, eight tremendous tracks, half of them absolutely great – perhaps represents the most precise example of the excellent level that the Spanish garage sound acquired during the golden years of the genre, basically the second half of the 60s, its glory days, and a few later examples from the early 70s. That’s a magical word, garage, a synonym of raw and hard sounds charged with the pride, rage and symbology of the angry young 60s. Aggressive recordings that seemed to transcend the prudish cultural permissiveness of the period. A glorious spit which established a new musical canon in that sparkling decade. Right at the front were Los Nivram, majestic in their proposal, in the fascinating position of being teenage creators probably unaware of the reach of their work. They formed in 1964 in Granollers (Barcelona) around a strong family connection; the three Mauri brothers were the basic core of the band: the great Jordi Mauri (songwriter, vocals, sax and rhythm guitar), Francesc Mauri (bass) and Josep Mauri (drums), with David Sala (lead guitar and vocals). From the beginning they displayed a devotion for The Shadows (so far away in principle from the Nuggets spirit) which made them choose one of their tracks as the band’s name. Show after show, their doctorate arrived on stage after playing constantly at the beach clubs of the Mediterranean coast, mainly in the Costa Brava and Palma de Mallorca. But it’s in their only two EPs originally released by Regal, which this record compiles, where lies the reason for their legendary status. Two arguments explain Los Nivram better than anything else: their glorious songbook, composed entirely by themselves with the exception of the cover of Mancini’s ‘Peter Gunn’, and the amazing command of rhythm that drives them. When you play their fabulous ‘Un amor sin igual’, it sounds as stubborn as lyrical, all at once, a marvel of balance sustained by a guitar riff that although it lasts two minutes, it could last half a life. Where do I sign? The same magical counterbalance is present in the other jewels of the crown, the menacing ‘Sombras’, the dreamy ‘La estrella’… Vicente Fabuel