The debut album of Vetusta Morla, one of the albums with the best reception among the public and critics of Spanish independent pop-rock in recent times. Awarded with three Music Awards and four UFI Independent Music Awards. The album is a musical summary of nine years in search of assimilating careful texts in Castilian to the schemes of Anglo-Saxon popular music. Nine years in which they built their characteristic sonic identity using the instrumentation of a classic rock combo, but fleeing from the conventional language of the genre.
Un día en el mundo (A Day in the World), is a frame taken from a larger story, an unfathomable story that is sensed in everyday experiences, without being unveiled. His songs are almost cinematic pills, enigmas whose key only each person who listens to them and who is invited to fill in the blanks for themselves.
The main photo by David Martin Page. Design by Pucho.
Un día en el mundo was the first full-length album released by the Spanish rock band Vetusta Morla. It achieved gold record certification after managing to sell more than 35,000 units.
After not receiving the support from record companies, Vetusta Morla created the own label Pequeño salto mortal, where they published their first album in February 2008. The album began to develop in Alameda de Cervera (Ciudad Real), in the “Creation” workshop of the artist Alfredo Martínez. The rest of the recording was finished at the Sonobox studios in Madrid.
The album includes songs from different eras of the band, some of which have been revised and even renamed.
Un día en el mundo is also the title of the song that was chosen as the cover title for the album. The video for it was made by Álvaro León, and was nominated at the Malaga Film Festival and the Medina del Campo Short Film Festival (2008).
The photograph on the album cover, taken by David Martín Page (@martinpagefotografia), shows a boy jumping between two benches on a pier by the sea. It is held on Nueva Icaria beach in Barcelona (Spain). The band members explain the relationship between this image and the band itself in an interview:
“The sky and the sea are immense, immeasurable. But the boy does not seem to notice, he is focused on his little adventure of the day, jumping from one bank to another. For others it will be something insignificant, but for him it is his great audacity, the odyssey of that journey. By releasing this album, we feel in a similar way to that child. He will not be the same again after that leap, but it is not a radical change either, it is a small step forward, one more chapter in a larger story, a stage that has developed naturally within a long evolution.”
The album has a special edition of 2080 copies as well, it consists of the CD, the DVD “The song number 13” made by Guillermo Galván (guitarist of the band), which shows the process of recording the album, the lyrics on individual transparencies , and a piece of a puzzle. In total, there are 13 puzzles (as many as songs), and each consists of 160 pieces, which make up the image of the album cover.
According to the group’s words, all the pieces together make up the great puzzle of Vetusta Morla, which means that you are also part of it, part of us and part of the songs. “We have the aspiration of making music that presents gaps, blank spaces that each one has to complete with what you feel or think. That means that the songs will grow with your energy and their meaning will expand with what you contribute. It means that they also belong to you and that you have participated in creating something greater and more beautiful. The pieces you own are the physical manifestation of this.”
Each copie was handcrafted by the members of the group. The design was made, once again, by Pucho.
On its first two weeks on sale, the album entered the official sales list prepared by Promusicae, reaching almost 2,000 copies sold out.
The official presentation of the album had its climax on April 19, 2008 in the Sala Joy Eslava. With the “Tickets Sold Out” sign hanging weeks before the show, and an audience totally devoted, the band performed, in front of 1,500 people, in one of the band’s most special concerts.
The scenography was carried out by Álvaro León and the Keloide team, who managed to recreate in a very special way the atmosphere of the video clip of Un día en el mundo.
After more than a year and a half of a successful tour that took place all over Spain and Mexico, in November 2009 Vetusta morla ended this tour by squaring the circle and returning to the starting station. Thus, the band decided to offer five farewell concerts in Madrid, returning to the gambling dens where they grew up, and where they forged their musical identity and where the first chapters of their journey were written.
For five nights in a row, between November 3 and 7, each with a different flavor and special protagonists, Vetusta Morla performed at the Sala El Sol, the Sala Caracol, the Café La Palma (where they offered an exclusive acoustic concert for the holders of the limited edition of the album), La Riviera and, finally, Joy Eslava.
On December 30, 2018, on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of Un día en el mundo, Vetusta Morla would offer a special concert at the WiZink Center in Madrid, a show in which the sextet looked back to commemorate its record beginnings and first bowling.