SOUNDTRACK: LARA BELLO-Tiny Desk Concert #728 (April 10, 2018).
I was quite taken with the instrumentation on this Tiny Desk Concert. Although Lara Bello sings in Spanish and the main instrument is flamenco guitar, the addition of the clarinet (Jay Rattman), was a real treat. It was a sweet surprise in the beginning of the first song “Nana de Chocolate y Leche” and then it was like the addition of a new culture in the main body of the song when it had a more klezmer sound.
I love the percussion that Arturo Stable is playing. In addition to the box drum, he’s got a wooden bowl with clattering stuff in it that he is manipulating with his foot.
I’m glad to note that the instrumentation was a deliberate choice and an eccentric one:
Lara Bello occupies the space between genres where magic happens. Born in Spain, she was raised with not only Spanish traditions like flamenco and canto but also pop music and jazz. The instrumentation she assembled for her Tiny Desk reflects that elastic approach to genre: acoustic classical guitar, clarinet, violin and a percussionist who didn’t keep time so much as color the proceedings.
None of this should detract from the amazing work of Eric Kurimski on guitar. It’s only about midway through the first song that you realize that all of the music that’s not clarinet or violin is coming from him.
Bello says that “Nana de Chocolate y Leche” is a lullaby for her friend who had twin babies one born with skin more the color of chocolate and one with skin more the color of milk. The na na na section was a lot of fun and felt like it could be any language especially as that section seems to drift every so slightly from flamenco.
“Suave” (soft) is about a butterfly that wants to reach the moon. It opens with a beautiful violin (Janet Sora Chung) melody and a delicate clarinet addition. The middle section of just guitar and violin is gorgeous. I love hearing her sing the word “suave” at the end of the song.
“Sola” means “on my own” and is dedicated to everyone who has fallen deep and had to learn again how to fly again and once they did it, they flew higher. It’s a pretty song with an extended clarinet solo.
After just three albums, Bello has become a noteworthy presence in the community of Spanish musicians who deftly mix jazz, classical and other traditions from Spain. That world can seem like a secret society to those who don’t understand Spanish, but you’ll see during Bello’s performances that the lyrics double as another flight of exploration as they float like wisps of smoke through the sonic spaces carved out by her collaborators.
[READ: January 2, 2018] Vapor
Max is an illustrator from Spain (his full name is Max Bardin).
I really enjoy Max’s works. Although not too many have been translated into English (this was translated by Carol Gnojewski), his visuals are pretty striking and “simple” and are easy to enjoy even if you can’t read the words (usually of dialog).
Max’s stories and pictures are usually pretty surreal. I enjoy his pictures as much as the stories, although the stories are often quite funny and enjoyable even if they don’t always make perfect sense. The fact thar the epigram is from Dinosaur Jr is pretty awesome: “I feel the pain of everyone / and then I feel nothing”
The main character of this story is a man with a crazily long, boomerang-shaped nose. He is lying in a desert saying he feels like he is floating. Up walks a cat with a similarly large nose. The cat says the man is just hungry. The man says he is not. The cat asks if he’s one of those self-righteous people. The man says no, he is just looking for meaning. The cat asks if he means God. “No , God is only a contaminated and infectious idea. I don’t pursue ideas, I seek experiences.”
Then he goes on to talk about Absolute and Transparent things, vacancy, silence, paradoxes. (more…)
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