EL SALTO 2021

cover Cover Art Digital Art Drawing Editorial Illustration feminism ILLUSTRATION magazine Procreate protest

This is a compilation of all the back covers I've done so far in 2021 for the newspaper EL SALTO.

The back cover of this Spanish independent newspaper always contains a column written by Layla Martínez called "La Tostadora", in which she talks about various socio-political subjects using music as the unifying thread.

Tools: Procreate & Ipad Pro

Client: EL SALTO
Art Direction: Byron Maher & Sancho Somalo
Issues: #46-57
Year: 2021

#57 FANS

Editorial illustration for the back cover of El Salto Diario. This time Layla Martínez writes about fans and their idols: how that relationship is often more complex than it seems, even though it has been commonly ridiculed and mocked in the media, and how it may be the closest phenomenon to utopic romanticism we can see nowadays.

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#56 LES RALLIZES DÉNUDÉS

Editorial illustration for the back cover of El Salto Diario. In this issue Layla Martínez talks about the mysterious japanese band Les Rallizes Dénudés and their idea of music.

"Its members saw themselves as revolutionaries and thought their music would contribute to the overthrow of the established order. But their lyrics calling for revolution or sympathizing with resistance movements wasn’t enough for them /… / They wanted to completely assault culture, destroy music, end the recording industry, destroy forever existing ideas about what a song should be ”.

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#55 TINO CASAL

Editorial illustration for the back cover of El Salto Diario. This time Layla Martínez talks about Tino Casal, a very undervalued Spanish musician and artist from the 80’s who passed away way too soon in a car accident when he was aged 41.

“In Spain, on the other hand, the movement arrived differently. The end of the dictatorship made the atmosphere more optimistic and the new romantic did not arrive so much as an aesthetic of “escaping from reality”, decadency, but rather of celebration, exultation. /…/ Tino Casal’s style drew from the new romantic, but also glam, techno, and Bowie’s pop. His music was pure festive hedonism: sweaty bodies on the dance floor, impossible carding, spandex and sequins. Excess, overflow, rupture ”.

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#54 POSH POP

Editorial illustration for the back cover of El Salto Diario. On the #54 issue Layla Martínez's article makes us reflect on a phenomenon that we could observe in the Spanish music scene previously to the pandemic. Bands formed by young men coming from the wealthiest families started to be a pretty common thing, and there was something in common between them: posh aesthetics, superficial apolitical lyrics...
They ended bringing to our daily conversations and debates a well-known formula to success: ✧･ﾟ:* rich parents *:･ﾟ✧

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#53 NUESTRO CORAJE

Editorial illustration for the back cover of El Salto Diario. On the #53 issue Layla Martínez talks about a generation of creative women in Spain who started fighting for a better situation with their songs in the ’70s. María Jiménez was widely known for her song “Se acabó”, in which she spoke openly and in a rebel fresh tone about the violence she suffered from her husband.

—̳͟͞͞♥

#51 SOS COLOMBIA

Editorial illustration for the back cover of El Salto Diario. In the issue #51 Layla Martínez talks about Colombia, and how they have been using music as a way to protest and a way to lift their morale during the Paro Nacional.

El pueblo no se rinde.

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▼▼▼ Close up snaps for social media (IG) ▼▼▼

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#50 ESTÁN PASANDO

Editorial illustration for the back cover of El Salto Diario. This time Layla Martínez talks about how some bands romanticize extreme right symbols in the name of free art and music.

“You only whitewash and trivialize oppressions that do not affect you”, Layla Martínez

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▼▼▼ Close up snaps for social media (IG) ▼▼▼

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#49 AUTHENTICITY

Editorial illustration for the back cover of El Salto Diario. In this #49 issue, the topic was: Folk music, how rescuing traditional elements feels more authentic depending on who it’s coming from, and how it’s done.

“Because not everything we understand as popular is the same: it does not have the same political and cultural implications to recover traditional songs in Galician language, a language prohibited and despised as” backward “for decades, than the aestheticized recovery of the clichés (flag of Spain included) of the music video “Demasiadas mujeres” by C. Tangana. It is not the same that this recovery is made by those who are part of that culture than by those who see it from the outside, with an exotic look that is always looking down from above”, Layla Martínez.

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#48 THE ICONS

On the #48 issue Layla Martínez gives a thought to how icons are commonly allowed to act in very unethical ways and they're still respected and loved by their fans. Is cancel culture really a thing, or is it a natural consequence of really questionable behavior repeated in time?

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#47 DEW DROP INN

On the #47 issue Layla Martínez talks about the black and lgtbi origins of Rockabilly, in the times of segregation in the US, and how they were not recognized by the general public. Instead, their influence was just ignored and kept in the shadows.

In the illustration: Esquerita, Patsy Vidalia and other performer. Oh yeah, and the foot of the white guy who got all the attention.

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#46 THE DAY THE MUSIC DIED

Back cover for El Salto Diario picturing lifelong rock-n-roll fans leaving flowers for Buddy Holly, Richie Valens, and J.P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson at the iconic Buddy Holly Glasses Monument where their plane crashed 60 years ago, famously coined the day the music died.