Nocturnal poet, solo musical circumnavigator, singer and multi instrumentalist Syd DePalma has crafted an album, with the help of Spanish artists like experimentalists Niño de Elche and Los Planeta’s Florent Muñoz, with a sonic plasticity, bridging unlikely touchstones of shoegaze, space-rock, electronica and flamenco.

Originally from Granada and currently based in Barcelona, Syd dePalma’s music is bold, fired-up often with a forlorn melancholy with various flashbacks to the indie of the 1990s. Much of his lyrical approach builds bridges to feelings of decadence, beauty, love, desire, hate, viscerality and within that, in the wider more visceral sense, surrealism.

“My work sits somewhere between fiction and reality. I often choose to narrate personal experiences in the third person, male or female, or through the first person, or even second person, blurring the identity behind the voice. What emerges is not so much a self-portrait but rather a fictional portrait. An entity comes from the interplay of imagination, my own lived reality, and the realities of those around me, familiar or unknown people. In this way, I give shape to a character or, more precisely a soul”

On Paris, Syd performs multiple instruments and is a lead voice if not for the guest vocalists. His notable instruments are keyboard and saxophone and he is united in his love for music past, and music of the future, with musical heroes like Elliot Smith, Dean Blunt, Nicolas Jaar, Mercury Rev as well as homegrown artists like Triana, Israel Fernandez and Niño de Elche all namechecked.

Syd dePalma teams up with renowned experimental and Spanish vocalist Niño de Elche on new track vuela, y sus pupilas se dilatan which translates to ‘he flies and his pupils dilate’. Both artists, with very different roots to traditional Spanish culture, go deep, reinterpreting the lyrics of an iconic quinqui film (a post-Franco film genre exploring the chaos of Spain in the 1970s and 80s) called El Pico (1983). Together they create an instant classic, unleashing what can be described as flamenco in flames or Iberian space-rock on LSD laced with some sparse jazzy horns and even a few electronic glimmers and all bound by a melancholy where emotion takes centre stage. Niño de Elche is an artist who has long been tearing up the traditional rule book. He is perhaps best known internationally for his work with C. Tangana as guitarist on the now classic ‘sobremesa’ NPR Tiny Desk but it’s his solo career that continues at pace – a new album beckons later this year.

Plataformas y Sexo is perhaps an outlier with the insistent vocals (and narration) by Barcelona based singer from Scotland, Heather Cameron. Drowning in synth and guided by a lazy rock groove, the song builds to a massive and very catchy crescendo. Heather has collaborated with numerous projects on the Barcelona scene, including bands such as Univers, Plataforma, Mujeres, and Futura, among others. Los Planeta’s Florent Muñoz features as guitarist on confianza, la noche me dejaste ser triste, an artist who Syd toured with in 2024 on a separate solo project, playing synthesizers and saxophone.

Syd dePalma has performed in renowned Spanish venues and festivals such as Sala Apolo/Nitsa, Razzmatazz, Planta Baja, Laut, Mutek (Barcelona), and even on the Primavera Sound tour, opening for Tycho. Not to mention performances at Ohm and Arkaoda, both in Berlin, where the artist resided for a time and grew within its spontaneous and avant-garde atmosphere.

Following the 2023 release of his debut album, El Lugar de Arder Syd now reaches out to the wider Spanish scene, bringing together some key cultural figures and in doing so has boldly
remoulded himself, a new contemporary identity, drawing on
pop and psychedelia with plentiful elements of his rich south Spanish heritage.