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Written in Folk Roots issue 144, 1995

EQUIDAD BARÈS
Mes Espagnes
Silex Y225049 (1995)

This is a major achievement in northern Spanish albums, though it’s on a French label with French musicians. Barès, from Cantabria, the region between Asturias and Euskadi, is a passionate, commanding singer, and is joined by accompaniments in like style - big, powerful, not using a whole lot of instruments at once but with the excellent musicians really getting to grips with their instruments’ potential for extreme sounds, wringing out every fiery nuance: Marc Anthony on hurdy-gurdy, clarinettist and bagpiper Bernard Subert, Jean-Christophe Maillard on baroque musette and mezoued and Jean-François Vrod on percussion and viola. The material comes from Asturias, Andalucia, La Mancha, other parts of Spain, and the Judaeo-Spanish repertoire, as well as Barès's own composition.
     Her singing has the full-blooded commitment and some of the melismatic, microtonally hovering, chest-tone style of cante jondo, but this isn’t flamenco - it’s new-old music, with the courage and musicianship to be really bold.


© 1995 Andrew Cronshaw
 

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