Itsasoko Sua by El Café Atómico

We’re quick to ascribe the adjective “apocalyptic” to music, but how often do we think about what music would actually sound like during an apocalypse? Itsasoko Sua by El Café Atómico presents an answer with its dilapidated production quality, DIY instrumentation, and lonesome spirit, replicating the type of music that would emerge in a state of extreme austerity and paranoia. Combining a single, meandering, raw guitar with percussion assembled from random household items, these instrumentals cradle deep, delicate, distraught vocals. Lyrics on the album describe both alarming scenes of mass violence and the mundane loneliness of danger, taking us not to the most exciting, dramatic, or consequential moment of the apocalypse, but instead to some random, run-of-the-mill Monday at the end of time, forcing us to see these stories as emotionally immediate. Our real apocalypse will feature none of the action sequences and orchestral grandiosity of the big screen, only the cold darkness of the day after.