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Moving half a world away back to the linguistic
source of the music that graces this column, we encounter the
latest from Spanish pop flamenco (?) guitarist Armik, Lost In
Paradise (MRA). His records sell by the bucketload, in itself
a giant caveat emptor. I really was set to bury this one in the
deepest slagpile I could find, a prejudgement fired by an audition
to one of his previous records which was unmitigatingly bland.
This one is a bit better, with at least a touch of meaningful
space between the notes, however the end result is nothing more
than slightly engaging, technically facile background music.
The irony of it all is that Spain is literally brimming with great
musical performers who play both traditionally and/or fuse their
inspirations with African and Cuban musics or with jazz, blues
and rock. Performers like Ketama, Pata Negra, Tomatito, Paco de
Lucia, Radio Tarifa, Aurora (one of pop icon Madonnas favourite
singers, can you believe?) Duquende, Jorge Pardo & Chano Dominguez,
Rafael Riqueni or Karakatamba are but a few. Best you check out
some of these and leave Armik lost in the paradise of his bank
account. Feb 2003