El Guincho Pop Negro (Young Turks)
3/5
By: Liane Escorza
When you enter the world of Barcelona’s Pablo Diaz-Reixa, aka El Guincho, one notices that he dwells in a psychedelic bubble, swirling in repetitive motions like disco pop lollies. His party heats up with Tropicalia, Latin and poppy layered harmonies, is wrapped in crunchy cellophane and cooled by a breeze blowing from Animal Collective’s nearby island. These are the type of pieces that encourage the hype of music bloggers, excited chatter between friends in front of a mirror before a night out, and get cranked up in the car on the way to wherever.
In contrast with his previous album Allegranza – a sharp and hypnotic LP that influenced and opened doors to bands like Delorean – Pop Negro includes extra ranges of textures and rhythms with elaborate verses, bridges and chorus delights that carry a constant contentment instead of his previous trick of long spiralling climax before downfall.
The opener ‘Bombay’ introduces tropical beach fusions with steel pans and fast hand claps, while ‘Soca del Eclipse’ is the pop highlight of the album, a relentlessly chipper little number. ‘Muerte Midi’ is a choppy creature with lose ends and randomness as its defining characteristics, yet there is nothing random about El Guincho’s work as a whole, however. Pop Negro’s patterns might be difficult to predict, but they are there, and relentlessly charming with it.
YT047 - El Guincho - Pop Negro by Young Turks
Artists in this article: El Guincho
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