Published in the December issue of Rhythms magazine.
Excerpt below...
Back To The Future
Rodrigo Y Gabriela take
what seems like a backward step, in order to take two forward.
In
a figurative sense, the tail end of this Year Of Our Lord, 2012, sees firebrand
Mexican guitar duo Rodrigo Y Gabriela, going backwards. Certainly not as far as skill, talent and sheer
instrumental virtuosity are concerned, but more in an exploratory way, going
back to how they began, as opposed to how they’ve evolved since.
Indeed,
this may seem somewhat of an odd move for this pair, who over the past five or
six years, have almost literally scorched their names into the minds of music
fans the globe over, such is the ferocity of their twin guitar attack. Their move from the metal bands of their
formative years to the acoustic firestorm they now control is well documented,
and since this journey has begun, they’ve basically reinvented how one can play
the acoustic guitar. And yet we now see
them eschewing the evolutionary moves they’ve made, and taking it back to
basics, as they see it.
Although,
perhaps this is a misnomer. Perhaps what
we mean to say here is that after their last album, 2011’s Area 52, Rodrigo Sanchez and Gabriela Quintero have decided to shy
away from the sonic explorations that defined that record, and take it back to
just the two of them. Talking to Sanchez
ahead of their New Years Eve shows here in Australia (a place which has
embraced the pair as fervently as any other country), you almost get the
impression he regrets having brought in C.U.B.A (the Cuban orchestra), Anoushka
Shankar, John Tempesta and the other collaborators who rounded the project out.
He
doesn’t, of course, but it seems he’s more than ready for just him and
Quintero, to really get it happening together again, just the two of them. And of course, within that return to basics, that’s where you find them evolving – it’s
like the old adage, you need to spend money to make money. In this sense though, you’ve got to take it
back to its beginnings, in order to grow it further.
“The
first shows we did in London (last month), without the band (from Area 52) were great,” Sanchez says. “It was great to play with the band, but
[these shows], it felt like this is
where we belong. Even just talking to
the audience, telling them that we were back and are [working towards a new
album], you can feel people really embrace that.
“And
I was very clear before the album, that this was only a project, it wasn’t a new direction or anything like that. We wanted to put the album out and do some
touring with the band, and we really enjoyed that… our aim was to go to Cuba
and meet these amazing musicians, and we had a chance to do it, and we did it
and professionally speaking, it was a very good move. Now I feel very happy
that we’re back, which was always the original idea.”
Back
in the guise they’re most comfortable with then, it’s time to move on. As Sanchez alluded, there is a new record in
the works, and it’s here, now they’ve ‘moved backward’, that they can begin
moving forward. “The good thing about
what we do, not being part of any specific genre of music, is that we have the
freedom to do whatever we want,” he says.
“[With
this new record], we know it’ll be back to the duo format, and probably we’re
going to get a little bit of a break from the Latin rhythms, because the rock
roots that we really have, they’re kinda coming out again,” Sanchez
continues. “And it’s very challenging
and exciting for us to be writing something that is not the old Rod and Gab,
like on the first album, ‘Lets come up with something new’. It is challenging, but we’re very happy with
what we’re doing.”
...
Samuel J. Fell
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