El Guincho
Alegranza (Beggars Group)
By Maya Kroth
Published: October 8th, 2008 | 9:02am
Alegranza, the debut from mad scientist El Guincho, is Ibiza, Burning Man, and Rio during Carnaval all rolled into one. The 24-year-old one-man wonder stocks his Barcelona laboratory with ingredients from all over the globe — from island drums and rainsticks to hand claps and synth-y samples — looping and layering one upon another like a plate-spinner to create sounds that are just as exciting.
El Guincho picked up some of his influences as a kid in the Canary Islands, and a hip-hop-loving schoolboy in Paris; but the song titles hint he's reaching even further for inspiration — all the way to the rhythms of the Caribbean ("Antillas") and Polish folk dances ("Polca Mazurca"). On "Cuando Maravilla Fui," he starts off with a platter of Arabic-like chanting, lays some raps on top of that, and then tosses in a measure of Italian waltz at the end — for shits and giggles. The bird sounds and jungle rhythms of "Costa Paraíso" mix shamelessly with notes that could have been lifted from an aristocratic child's piano lesson.
Born Pablo Díaz-Reixa, El Guincho took his music-making moniker from an island bird that always flies alone. One problem with being a solo flyer, though, is that there's no one to tell you when your radar's off. I can think of many sounds more pleasant than the recurring flat, raspy vocals I assume are his. On a conscious level, Alegranza’s repetitiveness bugs; but left to percolate in the brain a little longer, it sinks deeper, like hypnosis. "Buenos Matrimonios Ahí Fuera" spins such a spellbinding trance, with hand claps and chanting children, that you hardly notice the tempo shift from energetic jump-beat to dopey, lumbering, warped-vinyl crawl.
El Guincho had a budding career as a writer before turning to the turntables, and as such, says the writing was inspired by magic realism — Alegranza is a kind of musical One Hundred Years Of Solitude. Like Gabriel Márquez's seminal novel, Alegranza is a fantastical odyssey to places you never thought you'd go. The journey gets more and more ridiculous and unlikely until it deposits you in the middle of one of the greatest parties on Earth.
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El Guincho’s official site
El Guincho’s MySpace page
Issue #35
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