"It sounded too clean and too obvious.
of goth-punk and German minimal house in quite compelling fashion. Following that album, Palomo departed the band, and was replaced by guitarist Guillermo Astrain in 2008, by which point everyone in the group had moved to Barcelona. "After 2007, we just spent a lot of time without making any songs," says Lopetegi. "It was time for us to rethink stuff, as we just started to be a little fed up with the techno scene." Their tastes fanned out considerably as they got into grime, piano house, ghettotech (especially DJ Assault and DJ Funk), bassline house— "all sorts of club music" alongside hip-hop, R&B, and older, elaborately produced pop bands like Prefab Sprout and Cocteau Twins. This blossoming of taste is evident in one of Delorean’s most notable contributions to the Barcelona music scene: Desparrame, a club night and mixtape-filled blog they co-curate with DJ K**O (pronounced "Kigo"/"key-go"), part of the Plat Du Jour crew and a friend of theirs from Basque Country. Heading into the project in early 2008, the band was unsatisfied with the nightlife locally on offer. Barcelona techno clubs, says Lopetegi,
were "not a scene for the kind of club music we’d like to listen to," naming bassline and dubstep as two genres notably missing from dancefloors. To combat this absence, Delorean translated their joyous, adventurous musical vision into Desparrame, hosting parties with Radioclit, Numbers' Jack "Jackmaster" Revill, and Finland’s Top Billin', among others. "I started to have fun for the first time with our own parties," exclaims Lopetegi with palpable conviction. "Like truly fun, in a small club with friends… not super-dark techno, it’s more bouncy and friendly." The newfound, hard-earned sense of fun conjured by these club nights played a great deal into Delorean’s transition from techno-influenced punk to airy, ecstatic pop. The aforementioned Ayrton Senna EP, named for the late Brazilian racecar driver and Formula One champion, marked an enormous stylistic leap forward for the band: Three cuts of bright, breezy pop infused with the beat and effervescent spirit of house, held together by savvy songwriting and sharp production. Opening track "Deli,"