Musical inspiration comes from many places - whether it’s that melody that just floats into your head while lazing one summer afternoon or from those countless jam sessions with fellow musicians. For some, they come in the form of muses in the night. Balúnes are just these kind of white furry muses for the similarly named trio, Balún, from Puerto Rico.

Music Video with Furry Balunes

The result of these musings with these furry creatures is a short but sweet sounding dream pop sort of EP with instruments as varied as guitars, accordions and melodicas to more traditional synth sounds from keyboards. Call it indietronica if you want since that’s the kind of buzz word these days.

The accordion melodies are pretty apt for the music of Balún as they cut through the tracks divinely while the effects ridden Spanish (if I’m not wrong) vocal plays a somewhat background role to the rich textures that flow in the songs. I definitely would have loved to hear more of the vocals as I thought they were good for the most part in songs like Snol but were not exploited to their full extent.

However, the EP is not without its hitches and in my opinion has a few tracks that were not so great. This comes in the form of the middle two tracks which are purely short fillers that, although perfectly fitting the theme of musings, are not finished material in my opinion. Somehow the voice of a real child singing on the second track didn’t strike me as particularly fitting. It’s definitely not as ingenious as the way Aphex Twin or Boards of Canada uses child-like voice samples and can detract from the listening experience. It’s basically a hit and miss affair and you’ll either really love it or hate it. The third track has quite a bit of filtered noise in it but is non-descript otherwise.

I like the “hit” 4th track though and it is in here where Balún really forges the sort of sound that will come to define the band.

Tracks I don’t mind hearing again and again:

04. Snol
This track reminds me of the work of Manual which you can hear on the Intelligent Toys 2 Compilation. Delayed melodies, shoegazey sort of vocals and basslines, nice melodic hooks from the vocals and accordion all wrapped into an uplifting four and a half minute track.

Netlabel: Observatory Online