On October 2nd, Sony Spain will publish one of its season’s major bets: Arde Bogotá’s new album. It is titled “Manufacturas del Club de la Gente Sola (MCGS)” and until now we had known two singles, the rock-forward and steady “Instrucciones” (the one with the “bam bam” and the “tractor-trailer”) and the very Love of Lesbian-esque “Bigger Splash.” This was also the name under which Antonio García’s band performed by surprise this summer at several festivals.
The record has been produced by Joe Chiccarelli (Russian Red, Morrissey) and recorded at the legendary EastWest Studios in Los Angeles. There is budgeting behind the double platinum achieved by “Cowboys de la A3.”
The third single released today, “El Club de la Gente Sola,” is somewhat different. It isn’t their most commercial song, which isn’t exactly something that worried them when they released their eight-minute track “La torre Picasso,” but it is a considerable change of register worth evaluating. Not surprisingly, Sony states that it is the track they have found most difficult to finish in this era, and the one that has changed the most during the process.
Behind all the testosterone of the promotional photo (is it taken seriously?) and behind all the gratis pomp of the press release (“Chronic loneliness as an epidemic shared under neon lights. The symptoms of a callous heart whispered among smoke, late nights, lost looks, and construction zones as dance floors”), there lies, thankfully, a very simple and comprehensible song for anyone.
First of all, “El Club de la Gente Sola” will be immediately recognizable and will stand out from the rest of the setlist as soon as it begins at one of their concerts. In a sense, it is a ballad infused on one side with funk and on the other with post-punk, which they could have performed in the style of Golpes Bajos (especially the chorus). Secondly, it serves to corroborate that healing spirit that music carries, with that air of collective drama “the misery of many, the comfort of fools.” The first verse is for the boys who are alone; the second, for the girls. And third, it contains a nod to Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies” (“you’re going to change her story like Beyoncé with weddings”).
Regarding the video, with a retro cut and vintage elements, it was shot entirely in Cartagena, in the old submarine tunnels of El Espalmador. Guillermo Aliaga directs “a kind of crash test set in the 80s, a hermetic laboratory where the invention is subjected to extreme trials while a group of people watches, expectant, ready to try it out. They are precisely The Club of the Lonely People.”
