The little Barcelona label La Mà de Guido has released a consistently interesting catalog of Catalonian music from the Renaissance to the present day, making a valuable assertion of the worth of regional music in an anti-nationalist time in Europe. Except for one piece by guitarist
Feliu Gasull and one by his teacher, Juan Orrego-Salas, all the music here was written in 2004 or later. The album's title, L'ull, means The Eye in the Catalan language (which appears in the booklet along with Spanish and English). The word does not appear in any of the track titles and is not explained in the notes, but it seems to indicate an eye cast backward over
Gasull's diverse influencs, none of which are treated derivatively.
Gasull plays solo guitar music and matches his guitar to percussion and voice. He draws on flamenco in the opening El Castell del Moro Músser (The Castle of the Moor Musser), on
Villa-Lobos in the Vuit Estudis Concertants per a Guitarra (Eight Concertante Studies for Guitar), and, most fascinatingly, on Falla in the Fantasia sobre dos Temes de Manuel de Falla. This is sort of a gloss (another term that figures in the action) on two of Falla's Siete canciones populares, interspersed with percussion passages in which one instrument is designated as a jar. It is not clear exactly what this is; it's not an ordinary glass jar but has a tuned skin that brings Indian percussion to mind.
Gasull lightly overlays chromatic and contemporary rhythmic sounds without losing the essence of the originals, and the variety of the whole, compared with the common run of guitar albums, is impressive. Consistently absorbing and enjoyable for anyone with the slightest interest in guitar music or Iberian traditions.