Alegranza

Alegranza! does two things that often appear separately in records you fall in love with, but rarely together: On the one hand, it reminds you of so much other music you love, and on the other, it sounds little like any of them. Spanish artist El Guincho (real name: Pablo Díaz-Reixa) makes music from Spanish chanting, thudding tribal rhythms, ghostly harmonies, and the bits and pieces of a thousand as-yet-unwritten pop songs. It's a combination that won't be appearing in any pop how-to guides any time soon. The impressive and probably unwittingly fashionable source material-- Afrobeat, dub, Tropicália, and early rock'n'roll-- and the irresistibility of these songs can only briefly obscure the fact that no one else is really making music quite like this.

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