Category: Catalan

Laia Llach: Sol d’hivern

March 20, 2023

Darwin believed love songs began as a primeval mating ritual and Byron heard melody in the roar of the deep sea. Romance and nature are the oldest tropes in music and also the newest; every song on these themes we hear today connects us with humanity’s long arc. There are, of course, artists of greater and lesser import: One who certainly deserves to be heard widely is the Catalan singer-songwriter Laia Llach, whose dulcet voice flows the eight … More Laia Llach: Sol d’hivern

Blaumut: Olímpica i Primavera

August 17, 2022

Einstein, Dalí and Descartes walk into a bar… No, this isn’t the full story of Blaumut’s fifth album but it suggests the ambition, gravity and splendor of 10 songs that peruse the relative positions of heavenly and earthly bodies in real, surreal and fictional terms, from an eternal we-sing-therefore-we-are viewpoint. Seriously playful, the Barcelona-based band has always seen entertainment as … More Blaumut: Olímpica i Primavera

Nakany Kanté: De Conakry a Barcelone

May 4, 2021

Nakany Kanté’s third album evokes a place where disparate cultures and experiences harmonize, each home displays artifacts reflecting the owner’s origins and precious pieces acquired on journeys of discovery, and each soul is forged by days of challenge and success, cheer and sadness. The smooth mix of De Conakry a Barcelone is organic, echoing not only a dialogue of African and Western … More Nakany Kanté: De Conakry a Barcelone

El Pony Pisador: Matricular una Galera

November 9, 2020

They are zany, surreal and buoyant, bathtub mariners and virtuosos who sweep through a composition like a storm, leaving behind a perfect mosaic of disparate elements. Five guys from Barcelona who have never gone to sea, El Pony Pisador surfs the soundwaves, inspired by Lord of the Rings (they imagined their earliest gigs as playing “hobbit party music”) and the comic strip figures Asterix and … More El Pony Pisador: Matricular una Galera

Blaumut: Equilibri

January 29, 2018

In principle, a picture may be worth a thousand words, but in artful hands the ratio can change. Take, for example, Jack Vettriano’s painting “The Singing Butler”—showing an elegant couple, under servant-held umbrellas, dancing on a beach—which Blaumut lead singer and composer Xavi de la Iglesia brings to life as Vint-i-un botons (Twenty-one buttons), an equal-value, 240-word song, simultaneously tangible and surreal, narrated by the butler himself … More Blaumut: Equilibri