Spring wouldn't exist without winter. There's a kind of ingenuous natural
happiness, and another kind that demands the tariff of a fleeting visit
to hell. But Dante knew how long a hell can last. The last two themes
of this record, offered as bonus tracks, like small compensation for those
who have been to hell and back, belong to the latter sort of happiness.
The road to the horror that stretched in 1937 from Málaga to Almería,
the same horror Picasso portrayed in his most famous work and which inspired
the first piece (“Guernirak”) on this recording. Horror is a well-known
language in flamenco, be it drama or tragedy. Here we have it in the form
of siguiriya or soleá…
Before the Kafka-esque nightmares of our time, long before Auschwitz
or Iraq, came El Marrurro, Manuel Molina and Juanichi el Manijero. Anyone
knows that. On the road to horror, Morente-Picasso offers exquisite tidbits
to keep us going: : 'Borrachuelo con aguardiente', 'Pan tostao', which
are twin bulerías, songs of the 'Montes de Málaga', 'Compases y silencios',
'Tientos griegos' or the Orquesta Chekara with Góngora el de Córdoba ('Soneto
X'). And then, happiness. The happiness of solitude, of knowing we are
alone in this world invented by Pablo-Enrique. Alone with our answering
marchine ('Angustia de mensaje'), which is the other name for childhold
('Adiós, Málaga').
‘Pablo de Málaga’ Morente.
Produced by Enrique Morente. With the guitars of Miguel Ochando, Niño
Josele, Rafael Riqueni, Pepe Habichuela, David Cerreduela, Paquete,
Josemi Carmona and Juan Habichuela 'Nieto'. El Caimán Records.
It must be because it's a joke. A practical joke. Happiness. 'Angustia
de mensaje' appears as a 'bonustrack': it must be because it's a joke.
That doesn't mean it's not important, on the contrary, it's the most important
thing on this record. Laugh and dance, tempus fugit. The beautiful goodbye,
'Adios Málaga', is also offered as a gift, or actually, with a request
for permission to take up these three minutes of our time. Pure nostalgia
of a man who is like a happy rose. It's a poem of reckoning, like the
classics (Dante, Borges), of nostalgia and memory, of places and people:
the great singers of Málaga, the sea of childhood of Pablito, the bridge
of Tetuán. What art el Chino of Arte4 had to appear with this remake.
This seems like a more intellectual record. More held back and thought-out
than previous ones. In this sense, I think it lacks some spontaneity,
except for the bonus tracks, in what it installs in avant-garde flamenco
as contemporary art. And, carrying this premise even further, it's possible
these bonus tracks are the most important part of the work. Morente gets
into flamenco “chill-out” (it seems the singer is enthralled with machines,
he who is able to do so) in order to give us a glimpse, from the depths
of humor and nostalgia-love for a city known in dreams, Málaga, and to
offer us this character, Filomena, straight out of southern lore, who
is already a part of our mythology, Hortensia Romero de Quiñones or Cortadillo
from Cervantes. It's not the first time this noteworthy facet of the singer's
personality, like his sense of humor, appears in his work. But never before
with this kind of depth, emotion and bitterness. And that last melody
'Adios Málaga', that facile progression, delightful: a declaration of
love.
Are any of you unaware that this recording is inspired in Picasso the
surrealist poet, who is the same Picasso the conceptual painter who illustrates
the libretto with a selection of his best guitars?
