Crash-landing onto the Crammed Discs roster from its own unique corner of the pop universe comes 'Es Tiempo', the lush, multi-layered debut album from Chicago-based Mexican-American three-piece Allá (pronouced ay-ya), a band formed by three young Chicano artists with an amazingly broad gamut of tastes and musical interests: producer / guitarist Jorge Ledezma, his brother Angel Ledezma on drums, and vocalist / guitarist Lupe Martinez.

The trio created a unique sound which encompasses some of their favourite styles of music from the last four decades (from German Krautrock experiments, Motown, Brazilian Tropicalia and cosmic jazz to the lush romantic harmonies of traditional Mexican trio music and to Brian Wilson & Phil Spector's symphonic pop nuggets of the '60s), while paying homage to their Mexican heritage.

In Spanish, "Allá" means "over there", and is the word used by Chicanos when talking about their parents' homeland... and by Mexicans when talking about... the USA! The very ambiguity of the word perfectly represent how Jorge, Lupe and Angel feel: they truly are Allá people, neither totally here nor there...

Allá's debut Es Tiempo was produced by Jorge Ledezma over a four-year period, using no less than 8 studios like so many musical instruments to create an unconventional sound. The songs' lyrics are all in Spanish, and relate a.o. to the band members' experience as Mexican Americans

 Allá's live line-up includes three additional musicians. They've been performing around Chicago, at events as diverse as experimental music festival Four Million Tongues and the World Music Festival, which already denotes the broadness of their potential.

 The local press wrote: "Allá updates Brazilian tropicalia for the bilingual post-rock set. Allá makes swinging, sun-kissed, galactic, Latin-inflected pop music" (Time Out Chicago)... "The combination of sunny melodies and seductive beats recalls both the delicacy of bossa nova and the retro-futurism of Stereolab" (Chicago Reader).