Browse by Artist: FLAMENCO

Artist:	FLAMENCO
Title:	Flamenco
Label:	VINILISSSIMO (SPAIN)
Format:	LP
Price:	$25.00
Catalog #:	MRSSS 004LP

Vinyl-only release. In the land of traditional flamenco, this five-piece from Seville combined in 1973 their musical heritage with psychedelic rock to produce a mighty flamenco rock fusion. Unappreciated at the time, this groundbreaking LP sounds today free of any ties and absolutely devastating. Few initial audacities can match these Andalusian guys: to name themselves Flamenco coming from Seville and playing their style of music. They were a long-haired five-piece into psychedelia in the land of orthodox arte jondo (traditional Andalusian music). True B-list rock artists in Seville, usually ignored and unrecognized even in their most undisputed values, until very recently no one took their explosive fusion of flamenco and psych-rock seriously. Behind the group were the Garrido brothers, tireless promoters of the local Sevillian scene from 1967, first in Los Soñadores (with two released singles and also featuring Tele, future drummer in Triana) and later in Galaxia (with another two singles and a sound that already flirted with psychedelic fusion). It was in 1972 when, under that beautifully provocative name, the executive production of their manager, Emilio Santamaría (father of Eurovision winner Massiel), and the musical production of Carlos Montenegro, they released this, their only LP, and four singles, all included on the album and produced with the charts in mind, although they didn't get anywhere near them. At first glance, Flamenco may have been filed along with many of the light flamenco pop acts from the '70s (Payos, Gazpacho?) but today, there's no doubt about their singularity, although at the time the fact that they dared to use texts by Lorca or tanguillos (a flamenco style) by Paco de Lucía didn't grant them the first division status and respectability they were after. The band bared their souls on the opening track, the ardent "Dímelo," a simple flamenco rumba in its origin but here transformed by psychedelic additions in perfect collusion with borrowings from Santana's Latin rock and Osibisa's Afro-rock. It's a track that practically defines the record and its extreme manners freely permeate the two sides of the album. Guitars, distortion, organs, fuzz, percussion and the singer's jonda voice invite the listener into a psychedelic discothèque, and only a madman would nowadays dare to underrate a group like this. Including the original 1973 artwork, this LP is pressed on 180 gram vinyl in a limited edition of 1,000 copies only.

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