Into the Woods

Listening Post 9. El Primer Arbre del Bosc (The First Tree of the Forest) is a five-star stew spiced with dollops of Dalí and a sprinkling of Sgt. Pepper. With floating images and surrealist flair, the Catalan band Blaumut takes listeners on a giddy ride from ground level to the top of the forest and to the stars in the span of 13 tracks. The title song (video 1) embraces a scene out of Magritte and an admiral lost in a leak and sailing in a nutshell. The arboreal theme continues in De Moment (video 2), where “the city of errors is today a forest of mint.” Like the trees that make a forest, Blaumut’s voices, instruments and styles (folk, rock, classical) work together in the best sense of the word “concert”—from the violin and guitar driven cadence of Normal to the gentle drum beat behind Vuit. This is a group of artists open to talking about the method in their madness. The theme is “individuality within the group, small worlds within a person in society, single songs on an album,” lead singer-guitarist-composer Xavi de la Iglesia told the Spanish news agency Europa Press. Blaumut’s forest is a place where we can escape and also discover parts of ourselves. (X. de la Iglesia, V. Lambrinov, O. Aymat, M. Pedrós, M. Krapovickas)

Related Post. Blaumut: Equilibri, Listening Post 135, Jan 29, 2018
https://worldlisteningpost.com/2018/01/29/blaumut-equilibri/