Fantasy Bar - Friday Afternoon Car

Kieran, Diego, Jordi and Rubén used to be part of Migala, probably one of the best Spanish bands ever. It's something they won't try to hide. Now they are Fantasy Bar, whose debut album, Friday Afternoon Car, takes their music –and influences ranging from American Music Club to Nick Drake, Arab Strap to Neil Young...- into enchanting new territories. Friday Afternoon Car is an album of nostalgia and yearning for a brighter dawn; of harshness and tender feeling; of hopes and of fears. Its 14 stately, slow-paced rock songs are suffused with the beauty that lies just beneath the surface of existence. The careworn yet compassionate vocals of Scottish songwriter Kieran Stephen (ex-bassist with Los Planetas and Migala, bass guitar on El Hijo's album "Las otras vidas", live musician with QZIOS) speak of the emotions these four friends know so well: the persistence of memories; friendship and wasted love; the knowledge, throughout it all, that the good times can prevail. It's there from the first moments of "Spiders", which opens Friday Afternoon Car: the story of a bad dream called solitude, wrapped in gentle guitars and upbeat but delicate drums. The album was recorded at Rock Soul Studios in Madrid with the assistance of Carlos Torero, and features keyboards and guitar by Abel Hernández (El Hijo, former singer and guitarist of Migala) and electric guitar by Chris Bathgate (Sans Trauma, ex-Ganger, who also used to play bass with Arab Strap). It takes its name from an old British phrase that alludes to the belief that car-factory workers lose interest toward the end of the week: as the brief liberation of the weekend looms, everyday cares cease to matter. Friday Afternoon Car invites the listener to enter the universe of these songs: to discover a place to reflect and, above all, to feel. Fantasy Bar are: Kieran Stephen (vocals, guitars, bass), Diego Yturriga (keyboards, accordion and melodica), Jordi Sancho (bass, fender rhodes) and Rubén Moreno (drums).

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