By the Zonagirante.com team @spinning zone

Cover art by Zonagirante Studio

🎧 A new installment from the margins (Bandcamp releases May 2025)

Editor's note: We do not work for Bandcamp. They don't pay us, they don't know us, and they don't send us t-shirts. At most, a couple of musicians who have read us might have said under their breath: “"Hey, these people in Zonagirante really know how to dig that place up.". But that's it. We don't have a direct line to their offices, nor do we receive exclusive newsletters with tips about the month's releases. However, week after week we check Bandcamp like someone going to the market hungry with a crumpled bill. Looking for treasures, with a small budget but eager to discover tasty things.

🧩 Sounds that escape the formula

Why such devotion to this platform? Because, despite everything, It remains one of the few decent corners of the music internet. Bandcamp, founded in 2008, has achieved what many platforms promised but never delivered: to give independent artists a direct and transparent way to sell their music and merchandise. According to recent figures (updated before another corporation acquired it and filled it with PowerPoints), fans have paid over $1.2 billion directly to musicians since this all began. More than half of each purchase goes directly into the creators' pockets. In times of pennies per stream, that's still revolutionary.

Also, Bandcamp is like that old video store where the clerk knows what you like before you even say it. The algorithms are not as voracious or invasive, and the experience is more human, more personal. You go in, listen, browse around, and sometimes even chat with the musicians. It's like going to a digital vinyl fair with colleagues from all over the world.

So no, we have no hidden agendas when recommending Bandcamp releases. We have an incurable addiction to good music, and this site remains one of our most trusted sources. We say this with affection and just enough cynicism to know that tomorrow they might sell the platform to some bored tycoon. But for now, we're still here, with our ears wide open and our hearts ready.

🚀 Listen, jump, discover

Let's get down to business: these are some recent releases that deserve a close listen… And, if possible, with a good pair of headphones.

Here it is:

Moojeni – Nighttime

Let's start with something calm. The noise of the masses will come later. Let's begin by saying that jazz, like tango and whiskey, are tastes that are formed, acquired tastes (we dared to paraphrase what was said in the brilliant series The Eternaut). It's unlikely that a restless teenager, filled with immediate existential doubts, would want to engage with this genre so early on. Moreover, the author of this piece confesses to having a complicated relationship with jazz., Perhaps because the scene in his city is too pompous and inappropriately elitist to attract more of an audience to his performances.

But that's not the fault of such interesting proposals as Moojeni, project based in the city of Buenos Aires. We've found their EP, called Nocturnal, a record containing 5 tracks, where we can capture the feeling of listening to the soundtrack of a city that is more active and more fun in its most nocturnal hours. It's an album with impeccable sound, where its best moment isBlue Scene, a recording that departs (without straying too far) from traditional jazz styles, and draws on a (timid, if you will) spirit of more contemporary approaches, adding a  groove seductive.

We recommend listening to the entire album, in any case., Because, upon hearing it, an exquisite atmosphere is conveyed, even for those who come from noisier and more agitated musical tribes.

The Bitter Ones – Fucking Life

Let's go to the other side now. Let's enter the punk streets of Santiago, Chile, and observe that in these kinds of places there is still sonic resistance and social noise. Whether you're a naive and rebellious young person or a decrepit and nostalgic old person, punk, especially if it's well-made and well-recorded, should accompany us for a while each day., So as not to let the heart or brain die of boredom. Los Amargos (never has a name been more fitting) do it well, and their songs know how to describe it clearly. What every adult, worn down by society, wants to express every afternoon with a sense of unrest:

Midlife crisis
There is no therapy and there is no cure.
three chords will suffice
to right the wrong

This is a band that knows how to laugh at itself and its generation, and it doesn't need much to express it: Their longest song lasts just 130 seconds.  This entire compilation of exclamations against oppressive maturity barely lasts 12 minutes. Listening to this album is definitely cheaper than a yoga class or aromatherapy torture, and, obviously, the result is more comforting. 

My ex-girlfriend is an X-Men – My World Will Burn (live)

Okay, Zonagirante.com audience: How could we avoid the sacred mission of reviewing the live album of a Costa Rican band with such a great name? It was inevitable. Especially when the sound turns out to be raw, lo-fi, imperfect, but undeniably exciting. This embodies the very best spirit of what an indie band eager to conquer the world can be., regardless of whether there are only a few dozen fans watching from the front. 

This is honest material, with no wasted effort. You might find this review overly romantic, But we value and reward courage and the desire to make noise with a unique style. Of course, they have every right to insult us and say things to us «"But what did they see in this chaotic material, made under less than professional conditions?" (thinking about the standard that the most famous artists have always sold us)? «. And here is our answer: we find here a desire not to repeat themselves, to make their guitars explode in their own way, and to tell simple stories that anyone would understand, and which they know how to narrate convincingly. It's punk, it's rock, it's shoegaze, it's a fascinating whirlwind that you can't miss. 

That Ene – Looseness!

We're going to be a little pointed. Anyway, you're used to it by now. Have you noticed that there are currently doubts about the paths that electropical fusion can take? Many artists think that the equation is simpler than it seems, and therefore foolishly believe that, when it comes to mixing musical styles, it's simply 1+1 equals 2. Those who think that way end up presenting overly simplistic, outdated, even disrespectful ideas.

Likewise, the formula that Bomba Estéreo and Systema Solar imposed with such success also seems to have run its course. Now it seems essential to add more euphoria, more unbridled energy, and fewer repetitive patterns. Perhaps, as always, we will have to resort to underground, to the caves forgotten by the mainstream, And to discover the hidden gems being developed in the sound labs of artists who are clamoring for attention. Therefore, we recommend listening to this material., According to Sergio Castro, the Colombian responsible for this EP, it was produced while he was in the middle of the Caribbean Sea.

They are three intense tracks, intended to blow up parties, but in a bolder, faster, more synthetic way., without losing touch with geography or the eternal appeal of dance.