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Written in fRoots issue 280, 2006


FALTRIQUEIRA
Efffecto
Resistencia RESCD 193 (2006)

Galician pandeireteira group Faltriqueira’s 2002 debut album led them to a World Music Chart placing and a fRoots cover piece (fR 242/243). Since then, though there have been a string of gigs in Iberia, things have seemed a bit quiet for them internationally. But Efffecto (yes, three f’s, makes it louder perhaps), again recorded not in Galicia but to the east along Iberia’s north coast in Euskadi using mainly Basque musicians, is at least as attractive as the first, and even more varied and replete with memorable material.
      Though the majority of the songs are of traditional extraction, their treatment is unlike that of any other Galician album; the arrangements, again the masterly work of Euskadi-resident French producer and guitarist Pascal Gaigne, combine styles and instrumentation in consistently interesting and sophisticated ways, unbound to any tradition but incorporating flashes of many without pastiche (except perhaps in the tuba-bouncing, accelerating Greek bouzouki approach of Adios).
      The singers are now a quartet rather than a quintet, and despite the variety of arranging approach, their sound is as characteristically pandeireteira as ever; comparisons could be made, not in style but in approach, with the exuberance of African female vocal groups as their unaffected and spirited young-woman voices gather in unison or split into harmony. The thump and clatter of their pandeiretas (tambourines) is only occasionally obvious, but their pulse is there. Indeed the opening track is Senegalese Touré Kunda’s Fatou Yo, but it makes a characteristic pandeiretera piece, as does Caixa De Roseira, adapted from Rosewood Casket on Parton/Ronstadt/Harris’ Trio album and treated to just shuffling percussion and bursts of Galician gaita, and though the CD features a largish instrumental team including Josetxo Silguero’s soaring soprano sax, accordion, tuba, gaitas, mandolin, oud, guitar, flutes, harp, bass, percussion and a string quartet, these catchy songs are probably all do-able with their live band, indeed many would work sung with just their pandeiretas. It’s to be hoped that this album brings more opportunities to see them outside Iberia.


© 2006 Andrew Cronshaw
 

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