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Written in fRoots issue 343/344, 2012


TALABARTE
Talabarte
Fol 100FOL 1054 (2011)

The opening track, and the instrumentation, suggest that this might be another of those skilful but undifferentiated albums of tune-playing.
     But as it proceeds it gradually draws one into a conversation that becomes progressively more interesting and adventurous, in which the tunes are engagingly varied in rhythm, melody and instrumental texture, and within their tight structure there’s a good deal of free-thinking improvisation, the certainly top-notch musicians confident in their communication, inventively spurred by one another, collaborating not competing.
     Talabarte is a trio of Galicians getting the tonal and textural most out of a relatively small range of instruments: Quim Farinha of Berrogüetto on violin, viola and the dusky, deeply hollow resonances of nyckelharpa, imaginative diatonic and chromatic accordionist Pedro Pascual of the band Marful, and the woody plucking or bowing of double-bassist Kin García of Susana Seivane’s band. No percussion, and none needed.
     About half the material explores Galician traditional tunes, one combines and reinterprets Romanian and Macedonian melodies with nicely lurching rhythms and soaring fiddle, and the rest are matchingly substantial and springy originals. File under ‘really rather fine’; or rather don’t file, leave lying untidily around to play again.
     www.boa.es. UK distributor www.discovery-records.com


© 2011 Andrew Cronshaw
 

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