Tinta Roja ［LP+CD］

After leaving Spanish-Argentinean band Los Rodriguez, beginning a successful solo career with albums Alta Suciedad and Honestidad Brutal, and then feeling the ravages of rock & roll stereotypes (sex and drugs) while releasing free demos and rarities through his website and the only-for-the-die-hard-fan El Salmon, Andres Calamaro seemed to rise musically from the ashes, in part thanks to the contact with a flamenco-jazz fusion wave that was taking place in Madrid back in 2002, releasing El Cantante and El Regreso (the latter's name perhaps suggesting more than just a title for an album). Calamaro seemed to realize that if he, in some way, was going to be remembered in Spanish-Argentinean music history, it would be thanks to his voice more than to his compositions (some have compared him to tango singer Roberto Goyeneche), focusing his career, therefore, on being a cantor (singer), as he calls himself. Tinta Roja is the second studio album in collaboration with a Madrid flamenco-jazz group of musicians (the great Nuyorican trumpetist Jerry Gonzalez, flamenco guitar player Nino Josele, and bassist Alain Perez among others), and the 2004 grammy's best Latin producer Javier Limon, responsible of producing masterpieces like Bebo & Cigala‘s Lagrimas Negras or Paco de Lucia's Cositas Buenas. The album consists of classic Latin-American tangos and boleros, but far from being just another compilation, Tinta Roja offers a special sound texture with an unusual blend of tango and emotive permutations, Spanish guitars, and trumpets borrowed from flamenco and Latin jazz. From the first to the last song, listeners can enjoy two of Latin music's most intense genres, and with the deepest emotional roots, the Argentinean tango and Spanish flamenco. ~ Alfonso Goiriz