Archive for the ‘El Guincho’ Category
El Guincho – Alegranza
I challenge you to listen to El Guincho and not feel obliged to move your body, even just a little bit, that is if you’re not too cool or shy for dancing… Such is the fun found in El Guincho’s uplifting and sunny sound from the album Alegranza. I say sunny because El Guincho (the dude’s real name is Pablo Díaz-Reixa by the way) is originally from the Canary Islands and currently hails from Barcelona, Spain. His sound just beckons you to visit these places (even if it’s just in your mind), and forget about life in less than bearable weather, and just want to soak up a sexily warm climate.
I will begrudgingly admit that the songs have some overkill use of repetitive heavy sampling and loops, a few tracks seem a bit longer than needed because of it. This could cause a bit of a mild musical headache for some. By the way, just in case, all song lyrics are of course in Spanish, but it doesn’t matter, music is a universal language, right? The album is too much fun to be ignorantly English obsessed with.
The album artwork is another one of my favourite album covers in recent times. I mean, look at that parrot, I wish I had it as a pet. I could harness it’s uncanny eye sight and train it to find loose change off the street for me.
El Guincho played a show at the El Mocambo in Toronto a little while back, (brilliantly planned out venue choice; that’s two times the “El”) I was a bit surprised seeing Pablo Díaz-Reixa on stage as I was not that familiar with his appearance; he is a tiny little dude and quite youthful looking, but his musical presence made him seem taller and he came off like a veteran icon of his own exotic genre. He had the whole audience moving constantly during his performance, while bopping his head and maintaining enough of a dance as to not interfere with his technical wizardry such as utilizing a Roland SP-404 like he invented the thing.
The Toronto show took place just as the weather was really taking a turn for the worst i.e. nipple cutting glass cold. My warmed up ears and limbs easily persuaded the rest of my body to buy El Guincho’s Alegranza album after the show. Not just for the exciting experimental mix of tropical, dub, world music meshed together, but with this album one needs not waste money during colder weather on a DVD of looped fire place footage. I give my seal of approval that this album can increase room temperature by 2 to 5 degrees Celsius (a bunch more if dancing ensues) … Depending on your musical open mindedness of course… Thanks El Guincho for the wonderful musical warmth!
