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For the past several years, the Madrid-based label Siesta has been documenting the vibrant Spanish indie-pop scene as well as releasing outstanding recordings by bands from elsewhere in the European pop community. Signature Siesta bands La Buena Vida, Daily Planet, El Joven Bryan, and Sweden’s Club 8 successfully meld simplicity and sophistication, producing elegant, delightful music that recalls both early Orange Juice and Antonio Carlos Jobim. While half of the tracks on Aperitivo, Siesta’s previous sampler, are by Spanish bands, Expreso finds the label expanding its geographic and stylistic range; Spaniards make up barely one-third of the compilation. Siesta’s most unusual signing, New York-based the Free Design, active in the late ’60s and early ’70s, contributes two songs. The band’s mix of astral harmonies, skewed production, childlike narratives, and earnest Christian ideology makes it one of pop’s most beguiling oddities. The Free Design is in good eccentric company as Milky sings (with husband Momus) on a biting little tale, produced by Bid of the Monochrome Set; Louis Philippe, a pioneering figure in the worldwide soft-rock revolution, offers the brooding “Le Voyageur.” Siesta’s other new signings are less inspiring: the track by Spaniards Edwin Moses begins in fine Siesta style but devolves into a turgid jam. Laïla Amezian drops in with mild-mannered cocktail jazz, Bien turns on an aimless sub-St. Etienne dance ditty, and Holiday trots out flippant, bland beat-pop. Label stalwarts Arabesque, La Buena Vida, Club 8, Daily Planet, and El Joven Bryan, in contrast, all offer excellent samples of the lovely music that made the label famous. Sticking to formula isn’t always such a bad idea.Leonard Roberge