El Guincho @ The Corner Hotel,Melbourne (05/02/09)

Sun 8th Feb, 2009 in Gig Reviews

‘Come on everybody. This is a dance party. Let’s have some fun!’ Lisped in a heavy Southern Spanish accent, these were the first words spoken by Pablo Diaz-Reixa, aka sample happy wonder kid El Guincho, and they perfectly summed up what turned out to be an amazing night. His debut album Alegranza! has been garnering rave reviews the world over, and after seeing him live, you can see why. You could have been forgiven for thinking we were in the sunny cobbles of Las Rumblas, rather than the darkened rooms of Richmond. His idiosyncratic brand of Balearic pop is truly global music, and the entire crowd was transported to a better place.

El Guincho was undoubtedly superb, but he was ably supported by Qua, the brain child of local electronic chemist Cornel Wilczek. With the help of percussionist Bongo Legs, the accomplished producer, who has worked with such luminaries as Architecture in Helsinki and Mountains In The Sky, Wilczek crafts reverberating, spacey soundscapes, not with guitars and keyboards but with pedals and filters. Chock full of 8-Bit glitches and lilting flange effects, it sounds like the theme music for an epic Nintendo game or the best sci-fi movie never made.

While music as experimental as this will never be commercially viable, a few more conventional hooks would ensure that the set did not sound like the extended jam session it at times resembled. However, with music this inventive it’s hard to nitpick, and I for one am happy to have got to know one the most innovative and original artists in Melbourne.

After a few technical difficulties and a false start during the first track, El Guincho was awesome from start to finish. He came out sporting the brightest of smiles and a drummer who looked like an indie Rafa Nadal, and left to rapturous applause.

It is music steeped in indie pop conventions, heavy on the steel drums and pretty shouted harmonies, but when analysed on a deeper level his is music is as dancey as it comes. As opposed to an act like Qua, who is more reliant on sonic textures, El Guincho uses layers of rhythm as the building blocks of his songs. He utilises just about every rhythmic sample you could think of, from cowbells and handclaps, to whistles and congas, augmenting them with live drumming to really get your feet moving.

His mastery of rhythm was evident in the mashup of Palmitos Park and Kalise, in which he sped up the tempo of the first track from a ponderous shuffle, to a dance floor belter, simultaneously playing the bongos, keyboard while singing the incantory, stupidly catchy chorus. He is a multi-tasker of the highest order. The fact that his lyrics are in Spanish only makes the music even better. The harmonies are so spot on, the melodies so concise, that any cumbersome words would take away from what was a really complete musical experience.

Music aside, El Guincho himself was a pleasure to watch. For a man who has played hundreds of shows all over the globe he certainly seemed to be enjoying his music. He told tales of shitty office jobs, his Beach Boys obsession and weddings, while assuring the adoring female members of the audience that he was well and truly single. At the end of the set he guilelessly asked the crowd where he should go out afterwards. He seems like a really fun guy and it comes out in his music, which is purely and simply fun music, and you can’t ask for much more than that.