The program of this disc by the German duo
Los Otros, amplified here by guitarist Steve Player and alternating with Mexico's
Tembembe Ensamble Continuo, is less well described by the main blurb on the back cover ("the encounter of Spanish Baroque music with the manifold sounds of the Caribbean") than by its kicker: "the very new Old World meets the very old New World -- hear what happens!" What is in question here is not Caribbean music, but the traditional music of the Mexican state of Veracruz, which bears many traces of the semi-popular Spanish traditions of the seventeenth century as manifested in the works of composers like
Santiago de Murcia. The program also contains pieces from a little-known Mexican manuscript of cittern music called the Codice Saldivar 2. The Spanish pieces are juxtaposed with traditional tunes from Veracruz, performed by the Mexican musicians, with, for the most part, one of each contained in each track. There are several clear melodic connections, and in general enough rough similarities to demonstrate the point
Los Otros are trying to make. There's a shift from the
Los Otros trio of plucked strings and gamba to the Mexican folk guitars and harps, but the relationship between the two, with the latter influenced by Native American traditions, is imaginatively realized. The music and texts in both cases, many of them full of double entrendres that are pretty funny, had strong erotic and anticlerical flavors; these qualities also appear in two original compositions included on the disc. One of them, the Conga del Chuchumbé of
Patricio Hidalgo, draws in turn on a notorious Renaissance text, with African elements, that Catholic clerics tried without success to stamp out. The booklet (notes in English, French, and German, texts in Spanish, English, and German) contains a particularly egregious instance of European leftist chortling over the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Recall
Karlheinz Stockhausen's remark that the attacks were "the biggest work of art there has ever been"; the group members here compare Spain's colonial empire to "the USA making billions on weapons and oil in the Middle East, under the protection of twin towers named Democracy and Jesus."
Los Otros of course make a good living musically off of the fruits of Spain's empire.