I fell in love for the first time in Spain. I was 16 years old, living in the Valencian town of Alicante. The Mediterranean Sea was just a short bus ride away. It was summer and I lived with a Spanish grandma, taking classes during the day and filling my dreamy heart in the evenings with this girl, who was not Spanish, but from upstate New York. I did not know that I was in love at the time; I would only figure it out once things had fallen apart. But Spain will always be romanticized for me, a place of new feelings and stepping into the adult world with the fantasy of childhood still intact.
I returned to Spain nine years later. I brought my live-in girlfriend and after renting a car, we set out to explore the Basque Region and Galicia. Spain still had that romantic allure, but I’m sure most of it carried over from my teenage summer spent there. I still loved Spain, but it was a mellower, mature love. That grasping adolescent fumbling had been replaced, never to be re-experienced, even in my constant writings of trying to lace my fingers around that feeling.
The music of El Guincho, a native of the Canary Islands who fuses interlocking rhythms with found sounds on his sensational Alegranza! reminds of that long ago love. Something about Spain gets into the blood and never leaves. El Guincho’s music, though worldly in its approach, runs through those same veins.
My concern with acts like El Guincho is the translation to the live setting. Once when seeing Girl Talk, my friend leaned over and said, “Why are we here? It’s just a bunch of douche bags dancing around onstage.” That was the truth. But is there a wizardry in fucking around with a laptop, twiddling buttons and conjuring up rhythms?
El Guincho (Pablo Daz-Reixa) took the stage with a computer, a microphone and a drummer who used a computerized hand kit. As soon as the music started, the crowd exploded into wild dancing. My friend, too drunk to stand, staggered off into the night. I was alone and for a moment, transported back to Spain. It was 1993 again in the dark corners of a Madrid discotheque, my friends trying to pull me out onto the dance floor. But this time I danced.
El Guincho played many of the great tracks off his album, such as “Palmitos Park” and “Buenos Matrimonios Ah Fuera” with its looping chorus of child voices. Though he seemed bashful about his English, Daz-Reixa warmly engaged the audience in between songs, asking what other American cities are like and trying to gauge the mood. The show was a great infusion for a cold Sunday night and, for a brief time, I was once again 16 in Spain and hopelessly in love.
by David Harris
[Photos: Tim Murray]
