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Island hopper
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The tag el Guincho means “tow truck” in Portuguese, but a boisterous carnival float or rum-soaked cruise boat might be more appropriate vehicles for Barcelona-based Pablo Díaz-Reixa, a Canary Islands native, to invoke. Over the last year, reformed indie rocker Díaz-Reixa has been riding the success of Alegranza, his solo album as el Guincho—a sample-based extension of the tropical krautrock workouts of his trio Coconot (with which he plans to reunite in the new year). A riotous blend of sun-kissed sounds from around the world, looped and licked into hypnotic glory, Alegranza’s delicious contents promise to be even tastier in the highly heralded live setting. Mirror: Why did you choose to do a solo project, away from Coconot? Pablo Díaz-Reixa: I had these songs almost three years ago, five or six songs from Alegranza. We were guitar, drums and keyboards, and I wrote those songs with samples and tried to adapt them to the sound of the band. We toured with the songs, but for me, it was frustrating. This record was a response, because the guys weren’t really into using samples, so it was like, hey, this is how I want the songs to sound. That was a hard time, like every band has, but now we’re cool, they like the record too and I finally have the songs the way I want them. M: What are you looking for in the samples you choose? PDR: I was doing research on island music—not like in university but in a naïve way, by myself—and trying to compare the music of the islands all around the world. My main concern was music made on an island, like Cuba, Jamaica, Canary Islands, Trinidad and Tobago etc. Then I started mixing them up on my computer and they sounded nice together. It was a great thing for me that music from such different places could be friends. M: You use machines, samplers, which are very mechanical and precise, yet what I hear is so organic, loose and raw. Is this something you think about while you’re making the music? PDR: When I was doing the record, definitely, because I didn’t want it to just be the machine and a voice. So I recorded all these live sounds, live drum and percussion, and recreated some of the samples live too. So that was something I was concerned about, and using old stereo techiniques—exotica techniques, like all these hi-fi pioneers like Martin Denny, Esquivel. I was really into that kind of production. It’s not the only kind of production I like, but for this album, I thought it was something kinda cool that could work. M: What’s your live set-up now? PDR: We’re a two-piece now. I’m bringing with me my friend Aleix [Clavera] from the band Extraperlo, definitely my favourite band in Barcelona. I’m not using samples anymore in the live show, I got really tired of that, so I’m bringing rhythm machines, synthesizer, a drum pad too, and then Aleix brings an MPC sampler with all the bass sounds in it. It’s connected via MIDI to a drum pad, so he hits all the bass with drum sticks, so it’s cool, the way you experience the bass—it’s really alive. So yeah, it’s different, but we still play songs from Alegranza. We’re kinda like an El Guincho cover band WITH LEMONADE AND DJ KHIASMA |
