The New Raemon

Barcelona, 2008: a loud band's quiet second life

The New Raemon began as a side door. Ramón Rodríguez had spent a decade in Barcelona guitar bands — Madison from 1998, then the cult, English-singing Madee — and had already run one label, Cydonia Records, before starting Ghouls'n'Ghosts in 2006. The songs he was writing alone, in Spanish, fitted none of that, so in 2008 he gave them a separate name and put out 'A propósito de Garfunkel' on BCore Disc. The project has kept a working band around him ever since: Pep Masiques on bass, Pablo Garrido on electric guitar, Marc Prats on keyboards and Salvador D'Horta on drums.

'La dimensión desconocida' followed in 2009 and 'Libre asociación' in 2011, and the habit of writing with other people set in early — most durably with Ricardo Lezón's McEnroe, with whom he made 'Lluvia y truenos' in 2016. In January 2020 he announced a seventh album, 'Coplas del andar torcido', with sleeve art by Arnau Pi and a first single, 'Luna creciente', sung with Anni B Sweet and released on 21 January that year.

The economics have been handled sideways. Rodríguez was 47 when he made his 2023 record, and has kept the songs going with production work for other artists and commissioned music, including the sound identity for La Liga's 2023-24 season. He also bought his own past back: recovering editorial control of his earlier catalogue was self-funded, and Cielos Estrellados, the label he now releases through, is his. He told Rockdelux he never describes himself as a musician, only as someone who writes songs, and that he records his vocals at home with a couple of glasses of wine.

A record for a dead friend

'Postales de invierno', out on 27 October 2023, was the first release on Cielos Estrellados and the point at which the project's register narrowed to something close to a letter. Twelve songs across about 42 minutes, it was written as a farewell to Sergi Irurtzun, the childhood friend with whom Rodríguez had written his first songs in a school playground as a teenager, and who died of colorectal cancer after four years of illness. Rockdelux called it the saddest record in his discography.

The detail Rodríguez kept returning to in interviews was domestic rather than grand: in their last phone call, Irurtzun asked him to come and collect his grandfather's old record player, which sits in Rodríguez's home still waiting to be repaired. That mixture — a large subject handled through one small object, with no raised voice — is the method the next record would take further.

Ocurrimos lejos: nine songs, twenty-seven minutes

The ninth solo album arrived at the end of October 2025 on Cielos Estrellados: nine songs, roughly 27 minutes, written and played with Ricky Lavado of Standstill, Egon Soda and La Joya, who drums throughout. Rodríguez handled guitars, bass and textures and co-produced with Jordi Solans. His daughter Leia Destruye, of Mourn, sings backing vocals. It was recorded between Estudios Nautilus in Arenys de Mar and an old village house in El Maresme, which is audible in how little is on the tape.

The subject is the time Rodríguez spent accompanying his father through his final months. Speaking to Muzikalia on 11 November 2025, he said he had wanted to reflect the different ways time is perceived and how it transforms people, and confirmed that his father's decline was what made him step away from plans to reactivate Madee. The songs — 'Laberinto', 'Frente a la bahía', 'Tiempo', 'Diez años en un día', 'Una piedra en el río' — circle acceptance and presence rather than consolation.

The reviews treated it as a high point rather than a sad postscript. Rockdelux ranked it among his finest work and called him one of the best lyricists in the country, capable of catching a precise emotion in an exact phrase, singling out the title track for a near-liturgical solemnity achieved with no orchestration at all, and reaching for Jens Lekman and The Mountain Goats as comparisons. Un Disco Al Día, noting a Suzanne Vega-like minimalism and irregular time signatures, wrote that it is impossible to come out of a The New Raemon album unscathed.

Where things stand in 2026

The album's live campaign opened with the full band. On 30 January 2026 Rodríguez played Inverfest in Madrid at Sala Villanos, doors at 20:00 and on stage at 21:00, billed around more than twenty years of work and around twenty albums across all his projects; a review the following day described the quintet opening with 'Laberinto' and then ranging honestly across the whole back catalogue in front of an audience that was with him from the start. Barcelona's Suite Music Festival at Razzmatazz followed on 12 February, with dates at Sant Feliu de Guíxols on 21 February, L'Oncle Jack in L'Hospitalet de Llobregat on 21 March and Sala Ambigú Axerquía in Córdoba on 25 June.

Then the run broke. On 7 May 2026 the Barcelona headline show booked for June at La Nau was postponed to 16 October after what the artist and promoter described as a medical emergency that made performing impossible on the original date. Laia Cartró stayed on the bill, June tickets were declared valid for October, and refunds were offered through the original sellers; the statement thanked people for their understanding and put his health first.

He is back on the road. On 25 September 2026 he was previewing a show at Pintaderas in Valladolid the next night, and said that 'Ocurrimos lejos' is a very beautiful album, one of the best he has made, and one that is gratifying to play live — adding that he would rather work rooms like that one than sports halls, and that if someone is moved by his songs it pleases him greatly, but he puts no effort into seducing anyone. The dates on sale now are the rescheduled La Nau show in Barcelona on 16 October 2026 at 21:00 with Laia Cartró, from €22, followed by Clamores in Madrid on 16 January 2027 as part of MAZO, from €18, and Café & Pop Torgal in Ourense on 23 January 2027, from €16.

The shape of a night

There is no production to speak of. The band plays as a quintet at the bigger bookings and pares back for the club and record-shop dates, with the new material's arrangements built around Lavado's drumming and Rodríguez's voice pushed to the front — the same minimalism as the album rather than a beefed-up version of it. Sets are short by festival standards: the L'Hospitalet show in March ran to ten songs, a fuller headline night in Guadalajara in October 2025 to thirteen.

The running order mixes the new record with a catalogue now eighteen years deep. 'Laberinto' has opened recent shows; 'La cafetera', 'Tú, Garfunkel' and 'Sucedáneos' are the most-played songs in his documented setlists, and 'El fin de la resistencia', 'La Bondad' and 'Te debo un baile' have all turned up in 2026. What audiences report is attention rather than spectacle — rooms that go quiet, and a performer who talks between songs as himself rather than as a character, something he has said explicitly he prefers.