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Written in Folk Roots 1996

VARIOUS ARTISTS
Navidad Tradicional Española
Sonifolk 20077 (1995)

Pedro Vaquero has been recording traditional music in the regions of Spain for many years. In releasing such recordings on his Sonifolk label his objective has been not to compile a chronicle of disappearing traditions but to keep the music current, to keep throwing it back into circulation.
      To this end Sonifolk’s Cantes Del Pueblo series, of straightforward, unelaborated recordings, was primarily released on cassette and sold cheaply at bars, bus stations and other places where people gather in the source regions of the music - local access to local music. Navidad Tradicional Española is a selection of Christmas-related material gathered together on CD from recordings of seven ensembles, from Tarifa, Algeciras, Toledo, Guadalajara, Jaén, Valladolid and Burgos.
      There’s no Yule-tide saccharin or season-of-purchase sickly sweetness about this music - the vocals are full-blooded, the traditional percussion instruments clatter and rattle, a friction drum grunts. Not Christmas kitsch, or even a re-folkification of the usual carols. These are songs untouched by the sticky hands of choral arrangers and carol collections - this is the music for a season when people celebrate with people.


© 1996 Andrew Cronshaw
 

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