El Guincho: ‘Alegranza’

If you’re a young artist putting out world music that sounds like it’s coming from a battered radio in the 1970s, you’re aiming at quite a niche market. El Guincho (a type of bird that flies alone) is 24-year-old Spanish-based, Canaries-raised Pablo-Díaz-Reixa, and ‘Alegranza’, his debut album, is a testament to flying solo.

Based on the vibrant percussion and sun-drenched sounds of traditional island music crossed with African ceremonies, ‘Alegranza’ is such a richly textured festival of psychedelia that it brings to mind those ancient black-and-white documentaries of natives dancing themselves into trances. Depending on your taste and tolerance, the heavy repetition of chants and riffs - sometimes merely vowels- can grow tiresome after 40 minutes, the already maddening ‘Antillas’ not helping matters. It’s less rolling surf than raging tidal wave.

It’s a relief, then, when some deviations from the samey rhythms step out of the commotion like shadows over the jollities; ‘Costa Paraiso’ is strengthened no end by a segment of overlapping male voices, while ‘Cuando Maravilla Fui’ is a clear standout for its darker tone. With its ominous chants (particularly an older man’s voice pervading the end), it’s the eclipse at the halfway point of the party. Shame it’s so fleeting.

Released on 6th October 2008 by Young Turks.

Written by Polis Loizou.