New album is *amazing* and completely crazed in the high tradition of Spanish modernism. I can't find a satisfying enough thread to bump, so he gets his own.
Album cover feels like a total pisstake, designed to wrongfoot classical music buffs...although from what I can tell this is getting pretty breathless press in Spain, so maybe the listeners (and Sony) haven't been gulled, and something like this is what the flamenco fans have all been waiting for
https://e.snmc.io/lk/o/l/f77f947e4bfd43e4f13e566f2900a7e1/6884518.jpg
A sample track? I mean, you should hear the whole thing as no two tracks are remotely similar, but...idk, try this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1YEMCfDM3c
...or, if you want something a bit more straightforward
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONVBS6hkE_Q
I'm excited to check out his earlier solo work (he's also in Exquirla)
― imago, Sunday, 15 April 2018 18:51 (six years ago) link
OK, his previous album (Voces del extremo) is pretty much...Krautrock! Much more straightforward (and less folk) than the new one but lovely stuff nonetheless - it's like a slightly more obscure take on the cosmic folk phenomenon we're seeing in UK and US music (Gwenno, Circuit Des Yeux etc)
― imago, Sunday, 15 April 2018 19:19 (six years ago) link
this is a lot of fun even without having a clue what's going on. a rigorous cataloguing of flamenco styles in 'historiographical order'?
― ogmor, Monday, 16 April 2018 09:47 (six years ago) link
I also liked it precisely for this mix between retaining traditional rigor / gusto and its irreverent playfulness, stretching the genre and pushing it into unknown territories. Not everything works, some of those instrumentals bring little past their 'novelty', but I found Niño de Elche's voice constantly interesting, the guy is obviously passionate about it. I don't mind to have this much material when it's that fun to jump from one snippet to a grave number to another snippet / saynette. And so I don't even feel bad towards pure traditional flamenco (not as if I owed it anything, I'm not Spanish).
― Nabozo, Monday, 16 April 2018 10:20 (six years ago) link
this sounds promising, but am I allowed to listen to it if I know virtually nothing about flamenco?
― the yolk sustains us, we eat whites for days (unregistered), Monday, 16 April 2018 22:27 (six years ago) link
Easier if you don't.
― xyzzzz__, Monday, 16 April 2018 22:42 (six years ago) link
i like this very much!!
― calzino, Monday, 16 April 2018 23:17 (six years ago) link
I'm just glad it sounds nothing like frigging cosmic folk tbh!
― calzino, Monday, 16 April 2018 23:20 (six years ago) link
yeah the previous album is passing fun; this one is a feast
― imago, Tuesday, 17 April 2018 10:27 (six years ago) link
album of the year. I don't speak spanish but I know the sound of someone wrestling with the burden of their dasein servitude when I hear it
― ogmor, Saturday, 7 July 2018 12:54 (five years ago) link
yeah I was wondering when you'd get to this
― imago, Saturday, 7 July 2018 14:19 (five years ago) link
http://www.elmundo.es/cultura/musica/2018/07/18/5b4eed3ee2704eba4e8b45ff.html
interview in el mundo about authenticity and cultural appropriation. does anyone know who he's referring to with the 'three kings/magi' thing?
― ogmor, Wednesday, 18 July 2018 13:51 (five years ago) link
cosmic folk allusions correct; reminds me a LOT of Richard Dawson
― sean gramophone, Wednesday, 18 July 2018 16:22 (five years ago) link
xp to ogmor That would be the Spanish equivalent of saying father christmas doesn't exist, no? Since the magi bring the gifts in Spain.
― brain (krakow), Wednesday, 18 July 2018 22:05 (five years ago) link
ah! ty, getting obsessed with this record is proving to be highly educational
― ogmor, Wednesday, 18 July 2018 22:47 (five years ago) link
seeing him moan abt the taxi strike on twitter I come to the sad realisation not even heterodox flamenco is left unsullied by politics, there is no escape in 2018. it's a great album but, at least through google translate, he's a pompous bore
― ogmor, Tuesday, 31 July 2018 11:11 (five years ago) link
nunca sigas a tus héroes
― imago, Tuesday, 31 July 2018 11:30 (five years ago) link
he's such a turd.
following him on twitter provides an interesting window into the workings of contemporary spanish complacent chauvinism.
his stuff on cultural appropriation was eyebrow raising but now i see him revelling in his provocations and defending ppls rights to make jokes about gypsies, a fuller and uglier picture has emerged. being full of shit is obv useful for an artist and I like this album of centrist flamenco
― ogmor, Tuesday, 28 August 2018 17:41 (five years ago) link
this is nothing compared to me still liking 'the voice of steel' by nokturnal mortum, last seen headlining a nazi festival
sometimes turds have tunes. hell, musical vision
― imago, Tuesday, 28 August 2018 20:28 (five years ago) link
ah the man is an asshole?
have been obsessed over this album all week, it's amazing. the scope of it. woah.
― Ludo, Sunday, 17 February 2019 18:20 (five years ago) link
we only found out he was an asshole (of a common/garden variety) because we liked the music enough to find out
it really is a brilliant work
― imago, Sunday, 17 February 2019 18:31 (five years ago) link
new album is pretty striking. i like it
― imago, Friday, 24 May 2019 10:05 (four years ago) link
appropriation and all
― imago, Friday, 24 May 2019 10:06 (four years ago) link
idk if I'll have the patience for the whole album but Europa off his latest one is sounding incredible, a sort of Spanish answer to Wire's The First Letter (the song) or something
― imago, Friday, 8 October 2021 11:41 (two years ago) link