Seven strong statements (…) LA PUBLICIDAD Javier Herrero
Months after the publication of his first single titled ‘Pregón’, which included the polyrhythmic tune ‘Borrón enchufe’ and ‘Flecha’ (both present in this album), Les Conches Velasques returns adding five new pieces to those previous two. Katafú (Familea Miranda) cleverly describes this new bunch of songs as -Examples of crochet at its purest (…).
In the path of the particular conceptual exercise that his debut inaugurated, Les Conches Velasques continues to freely borrow from Pedro Salinas’s poetry. Favoring intuition over rhyme, Pablo Jiménez (Picore) re-orders the original text to create new images, making suggestions that do not follow any logical plot or preconceived discourse. After delving into each of the songs, that feeling changes and one can sense a heightened awareness nonetheless.
Except for ‘Rojo’, inspired by ‘Endè Iyèrusalém’ by Ethiopian author Asnaqètch Wèrqu (adapted to 3/4), all songs in this album were composed under the spell of Jiménez’s peculiar rhythm signature, awkwardly detached from the Western tradition. As if it were a river of reflections, the libertine trotting is the basic and fundamental line upon which expressive angles are bent, silences are emphasized, and repetitions that help conform an ornamental language -a mosaic- are established. A mosaic that we almost get to touch with the tip of our fingers in the quasi-jazz piece ‘Cruz vieja’, which shapes up while caught in a loop; in ‘Nana del charco’ and its unexpected pitch accents; and particularly in ‘Caballo’, the song that best conjures up glorified images of fire and its vital abrasion. In it, Jiménez plays guitars in a time signature of 7/8 over a rhythmic pattern in 3/4. Obviously, we can only but respond enthusiastically to that: ¡Que te baste el suelo! (…) (we hope the ground is enough for you!).
