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CD Review
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SlipCue, CD Review >>
Various Artists "BACHATA ROJA: ACOUSTIC BACHATA FROM THE CABARET ERA" (Iaso, 2007)
A gorgeous, stunning album -- easily my favorite record of 2007, in any style of music. This is an utterly enthralling collection of early acoustic bachata music, a guitar-based style that grew up alongside the merengue, in the Dominican Republic. In its electrified modern form, bachata has become a very popular style in the last couple of decades, but this collection focusses on the style's early roots, dating back to the early 1960s when it was looked down on by the Dominican mainstream, and features outstanding work by many artists whose work is quite hard to find. Like Cuban guajira and Puerto Rican jibaro music, this mixes the lush romanticism of the bolero with lively, dazzling acoustic guitar work, hypnotically dense rhythms and irresistible melodies: if anything, these recordings are even catchier than the jibaro and guajira music I've loved for decades. This is the kind of record that if you played it at a party, or heard it on the radio, people would stop in their tracks and ask what was on; if you listened to these songs on the way to work, the melodies would stay in your head all day long. This is particularly true of several standout tracks, such as Julio Angel's "El Salon," "Estoy Aqui Pero No Soy Yo" by Juan Bautista and Rafael Encarnacion's sublime "Muero Contigo," which starts the album off. This is music that echoes deeply with its own purity and warmth, made in an era before global fame came to regional musicians, and from a provincial subculture inside an already remote locale: this is art that was made directly for the people who loved it most, and it is electrically charged with that intimate joyfulness and passion. Each song leaps out at the listener, and I can't wait to hear more. Highly recommended! 11/12/07 >> go there
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