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Written in Folk Roots issue 174, 1997
XISTRA DE CORUXO
Adicado...
BOA Do Fol BOA 10002008 DF 008 (1997)
CHOUTEIRA
Ghuaue!
BOA Do Fol BOA 10002009 DF 009 (1997)
NA LÚA
Ondas Do Mar De Vigo
BOA Do Fol BOA 10002006 DF 006 (1997)
NA LÚA
Os Tempos Son Chegadas
BOA Do Fol BOA 10002007 DF 007 (1997)
EMILIO CAO
Sinbad En Galicia
BOA Do Fol BOA 10002004 DF 004 (1996)
FIA NA ROCA
Agardando Que Pase Algo
Resistencia RESCD 046 (1997)
XEQUE MATE
Alén Da Lenda
Resistencia RESCD 047 (1997)
Here’s a slew of recent Galician releases.
Xistra de Coruxo is a six-member group (plus
occasional guests including singer Silvia Costas on a couple of tracks) singing
and playing traditional tunes - muiñeiras, jotas, processional marches and so on
- on gaitas and percussion, but also expanding their instrumentation to include
such as accordions and clarinet to play some of the tune-forms, such as rumbas,
that have come in from outside to join the tradition during the past century and
have been picked up in the course of the collecting work of band members Gerardo
and Xurxo Fernández. There’s a good range of Galicia’s strong melodies and
instrumental textures, and it’s attractively not neatened-off round the edges.
On Ghuaue! Chouteira features the strong
lead voice of Uxia Pedreira and traditional acoustic instruments in a set of
largely traditional material. Unlike Xistra de Coruxo, Chouteira rarely sounds
like a straight traditional gaita group in its arrangements, but isn’t afraid to
be stark and strong, and accepting of the distinctive scale of the Galician
gaita (which would prevent this music from ever being bland) rather than trying
to make it “in tune”, and the material largely draws from a different set of
sources. There’s a notable collaboration with tuba and trombone on a pasodoble;
other guest appearances are by Oskorri’s Antón Latxa and Asturian band Xareu’s
Marta Arbas, and a sheep.
On its original vinyl release, complete with a
Galician art exhibition in the gatefold, I gave Na Lúa’s Ondas Do Mar De Vigo an
OK review, but listening to it again in its new CD format (with an extra track)
it’s clear that I missed some of its finer points, and there are many. Not just
the recognition of the continuity of tradition across the Miño - including as
guests the Portuguese Fausto and Julio Pereira - and the vocals of the great
Uxía, but its exploration of sound combinations. Probably before its time then,
now, nine years later, it sounds quite at home, fully meriting this re-release.
There have been other releases and personnel
changes since 1988, but Antón Rodriguez’s flutes, sax and gaitas (now with
Cándido Lorenzo’s gaitas to give that very Galician harmony-chanter effect), the
violin and mandolin of Pancho Álvarez (this time making a guest appearance) and
Ricardo Pereira’s bass are still there on the new album, Os Tempos Son
Chegados, with clarinet, accordion, guitars, bouzouki, laúd, drums and more,
as well as bursts of vocals, including two from another in the increasing number
of notable Galician women singers, guest María Teresa Duro. There’s synth, but
subtly used, and some natural-sound samples, but the period of drum-machines has
ended. It’s a varied album, drawing in a natural way on world influences - for
example, Cantar De Canteiros gets a South African, Ladysmith sort of
twist - and there’s a feeling of the freedom of new ways of looking at Galician
material, perhaps even getting deeper inside it because of new perspectives.
The sleeve of Sinbad En Galicia, by another
familiar Galician name, poetic songwriter and harpist Emilio Cao, shows him on a
beach looking out to sea, and the songs, in which he shares vocals with Susana
Varela, and also the instrumentals, have a meditative, wistful,
staring-out-to-sea feel. Perhaps in this case augmenting the instrumentation,
which variously includes harp, hurdy-gurdy, guitar, violin, keyboards, bass and
percussion, with recorded natural sounds is overdoing it; Cao’s songs are
reflective rather than vacuous or pompous but here he sails a bit too close to
new-age or celtoid catatonia to do that sort of thing without running a risk of
drifting into it.
Fia Na Roca’s Agardando Que Pase Algo
could perhaps do with some more rough edges in its elegantly swingy arrangements
largely on keyboards, violin, guitars, flutes, sax, bass and percussion with
periodic gaita. There’s skilful playing (Juan Aguiar’s soaring violin is
particularly notable) and development of tunes some traditional and some by
keyboardist Xosé Ramón Vásquez, or in the case of the Shaun-Davey-esque Ou
Sube A Terra Ou Baixa O Ceo and the oud-intro’d A Mesquita by
gaitero, saxist and whistle-player Xabier Bueno, but synth-stringy textures
bring it a bit close to the synth-padded travelogue-score at times; it digs in
most, breaking through the smooth, rather impersonal feel, when the pipes
feature, and when the piano becomes more prominent than synth. And, right at the
last track, there’s suddenly a welcome appearance of singer and hurdy-gurdy
player Xosé Luis Rivas.
In the same general territory of instrumentation,
musical approach and undoubted skill is Xeque Mate’s Alén Da Lenda. This,
though, veers to the open-sounding rocky rather than the indoor-jazzy, that
stringy synth creeps less frequently to the fore, and more air seems to be
moved. Again, themes are partly traditional, part new-composed, mainly by
keyboardist Carlos Iglesias. No violin here, but instead bassist and guitarist
Victor Ángel Gil’s vibrant cello; whereas Fia Na Roca use accordion
occasionally, in Xeque Mate it’s more frequent as a lead instrument, and again
the gaita, here played by Manuel Garrido, gives added grit.
© 1997
Andrew Cronshaw
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