Plain and Fancy: 08/13/25

Wednesday, August 13, 2025

Tapiman - Tapiman (1971 spain, rough hard psych rock, 2012 bonus tracks remaster)

Tapiman was a heavy rock power trio formed in 1970 in Spain, with José María Vilaseca (Tapi) on drums and M. A. Núñez (MAN) on guitar, later joined by Pepe on bass and vocals to form this unusual but powerful album from the Iberian Peninsula. And why unusual? Because it is a missing link in Spanish heavy rock, these bands would end up fading away towards the mid-70s to be reborn in the 2000s with modern bands taking up psychedelia fused with new styles like stoner rock (and no, that doesn't count Spanish heavy metal from the 80s and 90s).

Wrong World begins with that raspy voice characteristic of none other than Jim Morrison in Been Down So Long, the intonation is the same in Pepe's voice and bass while from there the classic form of 70's jam that we so seek in primitive sounds emerges. From the first songs we can find a wild heavy rock differentiated from psychedelia and heavy psych where the guitar work as in Gosseberry Park those guitars with overdub in post-production that give us a sublime preview of what can be achieved on the guitar and what a decade later would be exploited to the fullest: the dual guitars in the NWOBHM.

But what was a heavy rock power trio doing in Spain? As we can see today, every year a handful of obscure bands that never saw the light of day emerge, only from their hometown, just like what's happening now, brothers. Although I must say that the musical quality of yesteryear moves me much more than the modern one. The development of the song "Don't Ask Why" between aggression and rhythm is the unique talent of musicians from those generations. Personally, I look more towards this type of work than modern ones. We modern musicians have a block in our brains that prevents the development of the song. There's fluidity here, as we can see in the superjam in the hands of "MAN" Nuñez, on one track providing the rhythm, and on another, soloing madly with an overdrive or fuzz halfway through, or maybe no damn overdrive at all! But it sounds tremendously HEAVY, pure 70s sound, brothers! Is this what your rehearsal room sounded like? It must have been crazy, the song Practice is about it brothers, the Tapimans making a song about themselves waiting to go to rehearsal!! What must life have been like in Spain in the 70s?

The song "Paris" is sublime, dark, and charming. An instrumental take that visualizes the dark 70s in Paris, where perhaps the Tapi brothers were trapped on a trip, or maybe they wanted to make their own song "Europa" like Santana, but wait! Europa is from 1976, and this is from 1972. Wow, these guys were truly innovators. The similarity in musical form is almost the same, only without Santana's Latin flavor. Here, the song features a tremendous austerity that doesn't diminish the song "Paris," but on the contrary, gives it the dark haze of those small, cobblestone streets of 1972 in that city. What motivated this power trio to compose this song? What can we say about the powerful ballad "Jenny"? Tapi's musicality was misunderstood at the time, just as it always has been.

Driving Shadow is a super jam in the form of a tupa (that is, the future rhythm of hardcore punk) that without knowing it our brothers from Tapi used it to sound fast and aggressive and boy did they achieve it! This song is my favorite of the entire damn album since we can hear how they really sounded live and without following a musical mold, just jamming and playing to what their intuition dictated best. We can hear the natural dynamics throughout the song until it breaks with that drum solo with a phase shift effect as a way of wisely sectioning the song. In what year did those first punk bands come out? 1975? There is no doubt that the true roots of heavy metal, punk, etc. are in psychedelia brothers and obviously the grandparents are the previous blues rock but in a more natural and less noticeable way in these bands in the 80's.

The reissue contains six bonus tracks (four from the same year left out of the original LP, and two from a 7" single released 1973), really tremendous songs that are also stuck and that make me wonder why these bands did not have the merit they deserved among the heavy rock circles? but now it's our turn to unearth these true gems, it's like finding buried treasure, for those who know how to listen this is a truly wonderful sonic treasure with thousands of ideas still to come! What happened to Tapiman? Another album came out in 1979 which we will listen to in due time, but we know nothing about the musicians today, if you know something, write us in the comments!

by Miguel Krieg, May 26, 2022