On this episode we discuss Branquias bajo el agua (Gills underwater), a song by the Spanish group Derribos Arias.

Ignacio Gasca, better know as simply Poch, was the leader of this band which helped to define the spirit of the Spanish movida in the early 1980’s. Poch was by all accounts a colourful figure, with a taste for the surreal and the odd, much of which he brought to the music of Derribos Arias. Listen to this band’s music and you will hear clear echoes of much American and British post-punk music of the late 1970’s such as Pere Ubu, Joy Division, Throbbing Gristle and Suicide.

Their single Branquias bajo el agua, from 1982, has that sense of euphoria, with a touch of the sinister, that so often pervades New Wave pop music of this period. The song’s opening line goes: Branquias bajo el agua, es el baile de actualidad (Gills underwater: it’s the current dance craze!). It thus establishes itself as an ironic send up of all those dance craze songs that punctuate the history of pop music – whether it be the twist, the mash potato, the watusi, the macarena or the gangnam style.

Are you ready for the immersion??