Reseña en CD Roots

Meridional en CD Roots
Roots related music from Andalucía does not necessarily mean flamenco: Ricardo de Castro & co. merge quite naturally their multiple musical and stylish influences and experiences which go from flamenco to jazz and from classical music to folk music from all over the world in an album with a strong "Southern" taste. With their particular vision of that universal language called "folk", they tell stories and describe vital feelings and impressions in the way the best singers & songwriters do.
They manage to sound strangely familiar: their music is different from most of what you might have heard, but at the same time catches your attentive and sensitive ear with ease.
In ´Meridional´ you are exposed to intimate feelings and poetry in some moments, and in others are invited to party and move to earthy rhythms. You can discover a new understanding and new versions of the Spanish "Romancero" (the medieval songbook/balladry of Jewish-Arabic-Christian Spain) and the Andalusian musical traditions in songs like "Las doce palabras", "Coplas de San Juan" or "Nana de la luna", but also in the genuine compositions of the band which are conceived in a similar line, based on lyrics of the New Spanish Poetry (Javier Egea, Pablo García Conde) which talk about the melancholy of the lost of love ("Las afueras" – ´the outskirts of town´), the permanent stain of absent love ("Dixán", the name of a detergent) or the search for oneselve´s inner world ("Quién entra en la casa?" - ´who enters my home?´). The songwriter Ricardo de Castro leaves himself and us alone with his existentialist question in "El año del cometa" (´the year of the comet´): "Where will you put me once I´m not here anymore?"
In a pan-Mediterranean spirit, the recording features the Italian drummer Stefanno di Rubbo, the Morrocan ud-player Amin Chachoo and Belén Bautista, singer of the the serphardic group Aljama.
Contradanza´s previous recording, ´Mar de Fondo´ (Fusionart – Galileo MC), released 3 years ago, received outstanding reviews in the specialized press all over Europe and was presented live on a big number of folk and worldmusic festivals.
"They go ahead with self confidence on that slippery way which approaches them to the folkmusic of their homeland, without repeating the commonly used flamenco turns, employing direct references to the Penguin Café Orchestra and Celtic music." -Miquel Jurado (El País)