Cat. Nr.:
WN145172
Artist:
Kaloome
Release Titel:
De Otro Color
Release Date:
2008
Label:
Naive Records
Genre:
Gypsy / Flamenco / France
Press Sheet / Description:
Summer 2005: in the Saint Jacques area, a murder and subsequent reprisals spread panic and division among the Gypsy and North African communities. “We were all living in Perpignan, some of us in Saint Jacques,” Caroline Bourgenot remembers. “Those events hit us very hard, but the media frenzy that followed hit us even harder.” It was this shock that inspired “Que Pena”, one of the most beautiful tracks on this new album. Above all, however, it reinforced the band members’ conviction that music is a more powerful force for peace than weapons and that there’s nothing naïve about believing in its pacifying virtues.
Kaloomé’s songs are anything but naïve. Experience has taught these men and women that love is the sole area in which you have to accept war if you are to taste its delights. Hence, amorous jousting and its inevitable corollary, jealousy, are at the heart of most of their songs: “Galbi”, which quickly metamorphoses into “habibi”, the pet name for a loved one used on the other side of the Mediterranean; “Vente a mi vera”, an ode to emotional freedom; “Luna” and its modest metaphor that links the eternally feminine to the movements of the planets. And then there is “Alma”, a perfect Cuban tune that has been sung by the greatest male and female voices in the past – Omara Portuondo is unable to hold back her tears when she sings it. Here it becomes a hymn to the essence of Latin sensibility and no one cares whether it was originated in Spain or in the Caribbean. Listen to “La Vida”, in which Andalusian cajon blends with African percussion to have a good idea of a world that didn’t wait for the horrible term “globalisation” to be invented to exist, exchange, challenge itself and even fall in love. “Gitano Te Vas” has the same call of the wild; it is an anthem to freedom built on a strong rhythm called “montuno” with an added violin that might have come from the Orchestra Aragon. And it reminds us that the bonds between Cuba and Catalonia have always been particularly strong... All of this comes together on “Tu y Yo”, the instrumental that concludes the album, just a guitar and a violin circling, evading each other, feeding off each other and finally finding each other. As clear as mountain spring water. Or like this “Agua Fresca”, which is bound to become a huge hit and not just because it challenges our leaders about the future of the planet. Cool water is the special genius of people from the south, and they are proud to teach us profound things with the lightest of guitar chords. “De Otro Color” speaks of all these things without ever lapsing into negativity, ideology or preaching; “We want to assert our different origins, not erase our differences,” says Caroline Bourgenot. To be more precise, this means allowing the other side of oneself to shine through in order to invent new songs and new colours that are inevitably brighter. (source: naive.fr)
Tracklist
1. Galbi
2. Que Pena
3. Agua Fresca
4. Vente a mi Vera
5. Alma
6. Nuevo Aire
7. La Vida
8. Los Santos
9. Gitano Te Vas
10. Adebtouni
11. Luna
12. No Volvera
2. Que Pena
3. Agua Fresca
4. Vente a mi Vera
5. Alma
6. Nuevo Aire
7. La Vida
8. Los Santos
9. Gitano Te Vas
10. Adebtouni
11. Luna
12. No Volvera
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