Los Angeles Times Feature for Thursday’s Show at Echoplex
You can read the show preview for Son de la Frontera’s Echoplex show (2/28) in the Los Angeles Times here, as well as a New York blogger’s review of the last Saturday’s Skirball Center show here.
From the L.A. Times:
“Both of Son de la Frontera’s CDs open with the most basic human percussion: stamping feet and clapping hands. Then a guitar comes in, blending with a Cuban tres, and finally a voice that sounds like the Spanish equivalent of an old blues singer.
For a young band, widely hailed as the cutting edge of flamenco nuevo and applauded for creating a fusion with Latin American styles, the surprising thing about Son de la Frontera is how starkly traditional it sounds.
‘Our music is muy flamenca,’ tres player Raúl Rodríguez agrees, speaking Spanish from his home in Seville shortly before heading to the U.S. for performances that included a stop Thursday in L.A. at Echoplex. ‘With some small touches of other styles but always within the limits of the tradition. It is a reflection of the style of Morón, a recognition of the climate there in the last century, the music of the elders’…
…When the conversation turns to ethnicity, Rodríguez notes Son de la Frontera’s own blend: “Pepe, Paco and Manuel are Gypsies. And then Moi and I are not. And, of course, there are differences. The sound of every culture is different, and one should not lose sight of that, because differences are creative. It is not something bad, or something to fight against; it is what makes the music so rich.”
Many young flamenco groups have pursued that idea in other ways, blending the music with blues, jazz and hip-hop. Asked why Son de la Frontera has not made similar experiments, Rodríguez says that at first it was simply a matter of taste.
“But there is something more,” he adds. “Maybe it is important that ours is that last generation that had a chance to experience the way things were done in the past. You could say we are the last analog generation, and the next generation is already digital.
“Many traditions are at risk of disappearing — not only music but language, cooking, a whole way of life. In Morón, they still experience flamenco in the traditional climate, at small parties in people’s homes, but we don’t know how long it will be that way. And since we grew up with that, but also know the digital way, maybe we can transmit this to the next generation in a way they can understand.”
The idea, he says, is not to be locked into a tradition but to appreciate that tradition.”
“At a time when Spanish flavor is invading the fine dining world and changing the way people eat (the tapas trend has influenced the return of Italian and even Japanese “small plates”), we’d expect Spanish music to be making a comeback not experienced since the heyday of the Gypsy Kings. Well, there is an act out there with a world-renowned, accoustic-guitar-driven sound: Son de la Frontera is a Grammy-nominated flamenco troupe that has caught the attention of Jackson Browne and Ozomatli’s Raul Pacheco and Ulises Bella, who are “introducing” the group to L.A. with a show in a couple weeks.