This is how Robe Iniesta (Plasencia, 59 years old) explained his creative process to this newspaper last September: “I don't control what I write.
It's like vomiting and then looking to see what's there.
I get what I get.
It is not something I have control over.
Sometimes when I am composing, it seems to me that I am a kind of spectator.
I see what comes out and analyze it.
But in the end what counts is if it excites you.
And if it excites me, then okay, you can talk about love or war ”.
Extremoduro, the group that Iniesta formed in the late 1980s, no longer exists.
The band announced their separation in 2019 and a farewell tour in 2020 that was never held due to the arrival of the pandemic.
The group leaves 11 studio albums containing 93 songs.
More information
Marginalization, chaos and glory: the story of Extremoduro
Extremoduro
was published last week
. Songs 1989-2013
(about 19 euros), three CDs with 44 songs that summarize his career. The
Extremoduro
box has also been put in stores for completists
. Complete discography
(about 75 euros), with 12 CDs (the 11 from the studio and the live album,
all going to be fucked up the ass)
. In addition, during the tour of Robe's last solo album,
Mayútica,
the artist has recovered songs from Extremoduro such as
So clown
or
El camino de las utopías.
Extremoduro's music will always be up-to-date, because memory wishes it to be so and because the bars don't seem to be disappearing.
These are the best songs of the Extremadura group in the opinion of the signer.
Each fan will have theirs and they will surely be so recommended with these twelve.
They are listed in reverse order.
In the end, the best.
12. 'Jesus Christ Garcia'
Where.
The first great hymn of Extremoduro. Included in what is known today as his first work,
Rock transgresivo
(1989), although before it was a demo and then an album. It was recorded in part with the proceeds from Robe Iniesta himself, who went to bars with a piece of paper asking for money in exchange for a future album (
crowdfunding
now, let's go). The author himself explains it in the credits of the folder: “Much of this recording is due to people who a few years ago bought an album that had not yet been recorded. First a demo came out, then it was a record and now it's compact. Thanks also, as always, to those who speak to me ”.
What is it about.
Partly autobiographical, partly a resemblance of what the life of Jesus Christ would be like in the world today.
His mother would not be a virgin, she would smoke joints, she would cheat, she would spend her time in prison, she would consume heroin and on the third day she would be resurrected ... in a psychiatric hospital.
And he would love and his soul would be broken: “And I lost count of the times I loved you.
/ I unhinged your life by putting her next to me.
/ I vomited my soul in every verse I gave you ”.
All the scenery of Extremoduro around the figure of Jesus Christ.
An impressive cover letter, without a doubt.
11. 'I'm very good'
Where
. One of the most pop songs of Extremoduro, not highly valued by the members of the group's hard core and not usual in their live shows, but absolutely wonderful. It belongs to their fourth album,
Where are my friends
(1993).
What is it about
.
They are three songs in one.
And that is brief, 3.31 minutes.
The beginning, with those adorable guitar chords;
an impetuous change of rhythm ("how do you expect me to come out of the bonfire ...") and that beautiful chorus with a female chorus: "I would much more like you to wash your face only on the mornings that you want."
Oh, and a guitar solo drawing an imaginative melody.
The lyrics portray a love that in the case of being real (let's not rule out that it is fantasy) the protagonist assumes a surrender with conditions: “How he wants me to come out of the stake!
He doesn't realize that I'm always on the moon! "
10. 'So clown'
Where.
The song that opened the box of thunder of Extremoduro.
So clown
pulled the album
Agila
(1996) and put the group in another dimension of popularity. A
video clip
was even recorded
, something quite strange in those of Plasencia.
What is it about
.
Could a group as transgressive as Extremoduro sound on Los 40 Principales, the music station with the most listeners?
Yes, with a piece like
So clown,
a musically accessible song (piano solo included) and with lyrics without bad words.
The text speaks of a sentimental dependency with various interpretations: an unattainable, platonic love;
the cowardice of those who do not take the step for fear of feeling rejected;
or submission within the couple.
Let each one choose the one that best suits them.
9. 'Burning your memories'
Where.
From an initial sound of a very “garrapatero” Spanish guitar (as Los Delinqüentes would say), one of the best songs in Extremoduro's repertoire is promoted, contained in their second album,
We are some animals
(1991).
What is it about.
To fight to forget.
And in that transit one walks adrift: “And living, what an uphill climb.
/ And feel like I don't know what I'm doing here.
/ And always be dragged.
/ And lose, that I can't think ”.
Love has left and it is time to make an effort to erase it from the head and the heart.
Difficult task that Iniesta clears in this song where everyone who has gone through that episode will feel identified.
Emphasize the successful female choirs (“trinos de María and Belén”, as noted in the album folder) and those “me se” (“laziness eats me”), vulgarisms that Iniesta purposely includes claiming, as many times in his work, the popular language.
Robe Iniesta photographed by César Urrutia for a cover story of 'El País de las Tentaciones' in October 1996.
8. 'Bri bri bli bli (In the dirtiest corner of my black heart)'
Where.
The so-called "era of chaos" in Extremoduro.
A lot of alcohol, substances, members of the group on the run ... It is the prison record of the people from Plasencia,
Where are my friends?
From 1993.
What is it about.
Robe Iniesta stumbling.
Separated from his partner and his two children and without a fixed group.
He lived in a van, where he was traveling with his dog.
This is the context where
Bri bri bli bli (In the dirtiest corner of my black heart) is born,
a song of pain to lost love in verses like these:
“I dream of your skin, I feel better.
/ I'm no longer thirsty, I can dance from flower to flower.
/ I lose myself again in the quilt, I am left without sun, without sun, without sun ”.
On the "bri bri bli bli" the most accepted theory is an internal joke of the group that alludes to what you sputter when you have drunk too much.
Later, Iniesta would return with the mother of his children.
And until now.
7. 'It happens'
Where.
In
Agila
(1996), the great leap of Extremoduro.
The signing of Iñaki
Uoho
Antón, guitarist for Platero y Tú,
is consolidated
, who in addition to the six strings is in charge of the production.
Get a better sound, a longing after a few careless first jobs in this regard.
With
Agila
they become a mass group.
What is it about.
Also in the lyric is a fundamental album in his career, since Robe, without leaving his bravery, refines his style and picks up on classic Spanish poets: in the lyrics of this work he receives loans from Antonio Machado, Miguel Hernández or Pablo Neruda . He also uses
underground
poets
(Sor Kampana) or the reinterpretation of
I'm taking off,
the theme of the Malaga leader Tabletom, the brilliant and anarchic Roberto González
Rockberto
.
It happens
starts with a passage from Neruda, “I happen to get tired of being a man”, from the poem
Walking Around
.
What follows is the struggle with himself that the author faces between surrendering to his beloved or the option of the goat throwing himself into the mountains, in this case the moon, loneliness and chaos as opposed to the sun: “Sun, leave me in peace.
/ The moon illuminates me in this ruin, clarity enters ”.
The creative process makes its way at the end of the song.
Dizzy Gillespie, Frank Zappa, Freddie Mercury and Camarón de la Isla have left, but the "star" of these music titans illuminate their path.
The bitterness of loneliness as a hammer to open the spigot of creation.
Robe Iniesta and Iñaki 'Uoho' Antón on the 2012 Extremoduro tour KIKE PARA
6. 'Sweet introduction to chaos'
Where.
La ley innata
(2008) is a key album in the history of Extremoduro. Iniesta intellectualizes his speech and Uoho undertakes the most intricate musical structures of the group's career.
What is it about
.
Two avenues that make their way to a beautiful song: the lack of artistic inspiration, the search for a muse who has blown the wind;
and the pros and cons of a stable romantic relationship.
"How do you want me to write a song if there is no claim by your side. / The song that time will not pass, where nothing ever happens," begins the theme.
Through the wind we see how the protagonist goes through the phase of stability and artistic drought ("A gust of wind visited us. / And the tree not a branch was shaken") and through that of disorder ("There is no longer a standing stone, because the wind knocked it down ”).
Mysterious, fascinating, imperishable.
All that and much more fits in
Sweet Introduction to Chaos.
5. 'If you go ...'
Where.
After the
innate law
there was no going back. The discs would be of few songs and each one of a considerable length. Six includes
defective material,
the work from 2011 where the beautiful one looks like
If you go ...
What is it about.
If you go ... she
was greeted with sullen gestures by Extremoduro's tough militancy.
They described it as a "ballad", something really surprising because the song, which lasts almost nine minutes, shows donkey phases typical of the Iniesta universe.
It is true that violins adorn it in some phases and Robe becomes tender singing, but from there to calling it a "ballad" there is a long way.
If you go ... it
turns out to be a love story told how Iniesta likes it: with the precipice of loss as a feeling unfailingly linked to that of love.
With precious verses such as: “Hopefully I wake up and don't look for reasons.
/ I wish it would start from scratch.
/ And to be able to tell her that I have spent my life without knowing that I am waiting for her, no ”.
4. 'Love, love, love and enlarge the soul'
Where.
On Extremoduro's second album,
Deltoya
(1992). An emblematic song for his followers. So much so that Robe closes many of his concerts in his current solo stage with this song.
What is it about
.
Iniesta seldom sings other people's texts.
This is one of them.
A poetry by Manolo Chinato from Salamanca, a rural writer forever linked to Extremoduro.
Not only for this matter.
Also for that project called Extrechinato y Tú, the union of Extremoduro and Platero y Tú to play Chicano poems and which was recorded in the album
Basic Poetry
(2001).
Loves, loves, loves and broadens the soul
is a song that highlights hippie concepts that are difficult to refute: freedom, love, nature, taking care of the consumerist world… “As a child they imposed customs on me / They raised me to be a wealthy man. / But now I would rather be an Indian than an important lawyer ”.
It is the famous "chase your dreams", but in poetry and told by Robe's gruff voice.
3. 'Stand By'
Where.
In
I, absolute minority
(2002).
In some versions the song opens with a poem by the Andalusian journalist and writer Francisco M. Ortega.
What is it about
.
One of those Extremoduro brand songs that starts with the soft chords of Iniesta's guitar, to which Uoho joins, drawing plucks and then giving way to the voice.
The piece (narrated in the third person, something unusual in the group's lyrics) deals with the concept of waiting.
From there on, several topics are discussed: loneliness, loss (perhaps of someone who has died), the importance of fleeing from monotony or drinking not to escape but as a vehicle to encourage fantasy (“drink gin at night to meet her ”).
But the most relevant thing is what he achieves: a listener who internalizes that this heartbreak story may remind him of his own.
And he is moved, of course.
2. 'The path of the back door'
Where.
In his 2002 album
Yo, minororía absolu (Absolute Minority),
which features the most talked-about cover in Extremoduro's history: Robe Iniesta crucified, in his underpants and with revolvers on both sides of his hips.
The risen Jesus Christ who comes to take revenge.
What is it about
.
There are iconic images in the history of Extremoduro and one of them is the one that marked the live performance of
La vereda de la puerta de back:
Robe Iniesta and Iñaki Uoho, face to face, bare chests, long hair on their faces and playing the guitar chords at the beginning of this song.
A piece that talks about the search for the path to happiness ("If it weren't because I placed the path of your waiting, I would have disconnected"), the uncertainty of making the right decision ("And leaving aside the path of the door of back, where I saw you go ") or the boredom of reality (" And people die all the time inside my television. / I want to hear a song that does not talk about nonsense and says that there is no excess love ").
A beautiful lyric with some donkey kick: "Let them bury me with the dick on the outside
so
that a mouse can eat it."
And the best: 1. 'Second movement: The outside'
Where.
Included in
La Ley Innata,
the 2008 album that broke Roberto Iniesta's great creative drought. Six years had passed since
Yo, absolute minority
(2002), a period of blank paper in which the artist confessed his despair because he did not feel that he had things to tell. With his typical kaffir humor, he explained at the press conference for the release of the album how far he went to try to overcome the creative block: "A colleague told me to paint an egg of each color, which worked for him." With
La ley innata,
introduced by a text attributed to Cicerón, Iniesta immerses himself in a philosophical concept that will continue more than a decade later with the publication of the third album of his solo career,
Maieutics
(2021).
The two works are made up of a symphony divided into acts.
What is it about
.
The Garden of Earthly Delights
of Extremoduro. A song of 11 minutes and 43 minutes, complex and captivating, where the themes that almost always drive Iniesta's lyrics are shown: punishment, sin, romanticism, lust, the conflict of the individual with himself, the metaphor of the jail, the sun, the inevitability of the loss of love or isolation that makes you strong and prevents you from reaching out to the person in front of you. The listener puts himself in the hands of Iniesta, who leads him through a labyrinth where he will feel sadness, euphoria, agitation, exhaustion. A song where you enter the terrain of the mythological. And where you can enjoy beautiful poetry demonstrations: “Come in the shade, love, I'll wait for you. / That my heart is here with good ice. / Come into the shade, come, love, that I am waiting for you. / That I already have the cherry blossom inside my body ”.Surely sentimental memory chooses other albums as the favorites of Extremoduro's career, but
La Ley Innata
is the best, for the quality of the lyrics and for the diversity of the musical structures.
An album that the passage of time has only enlarged.
And this
second movement: The outside
is the highest point of this masterpiece.