Flamenco Chill

by Don SnowdenFlamenco Chill is the musical equivalent of a three-in-one Certs breath mint. The two-CD set introduces and provides context for Chambao, the group featured on roughly half the tracks and who also helped produce and compile the other ones. It introduces flamenco chill as a genre, which, by blending flamenco melodic touches and colors (acoustic guitar, female vocals, etc.) with electronica rhythms, basically pits emotional fire against musical ice and sidesteps the virtuosity requirements of traditional flamenco to boot. And it enables Sony Spain to re-market several '90s tracks from flamenco guitarist Vicente Amigo to a new audience, alongside tracks leased from minor labels. That may scan as a spot of cold-blooded music biz trend fabrication and calculation, but Flamenco Chill doesn't turn out that way. For the most part, the music sounds like an organic creation by artists who heard this synthesis in their heads and worked to make it real, initially an escape from classic flamenco limits by people who love it rather than a blatant cash-in attempt. Flamenco guitars with keyboard washes and synth strings set against programmed percussion on Doc K!'s "Media Luna" set the tone. Jose Luis Encinas' "Luna de Fiesta" features guitar and is quite nice in a mellow way that can play unobtrusively in the background without being total wallpaper music. María del Mar Rodríguez's vocals voice sets Chambao apart, but it does sound thin over the loping handclaps and guitar of "Playas de Barbarete." She sounds much better double-tracked, losing the thin, reedy flavor on "No Te Pierdas," after it opens as a haunting, atmospheric throb with a ghostly vocal loop. Vicente Amigo is pure flamenco, fine because it's a different flavor to work into the mix, but while his extended "Querido Metheny" with Paco de Lucía has its virtuoso moments along with handclaps and a lonely trumpet, it's ultimately sorta inconsequential. Much better and far more indicative of the flamenco chill sound is the seamless segue from Amigo's "Mensaje (Fandangos)" to G Club Presents Banda Sonora's "Guitarra G [G-Club's Chill Out Mix]," which is purely geared to the dancefloor. That is the other key creative aspect here -- how each artist weighs the proportion of club set flow to flamenco melody. The potential shows best on Denis Stern's "Way to Alhambra," where a nice bass underpinning and tabla percussion groove working under the melodious guitar is soon joined by French café/chanson accordion. Then Miguel Picasso's "Southern Nights" ups the chill quotient, with sampled vocals, more tabla and moodier electronica synth sounds, while Intro's forceful "Zambra" is more percussive with a stronger male voice and the Indian tabla flavor again beneath keyboard washes. Chambao's floating take on "Como el Agua" isn't particularly bad, but doesn't do much with the Camarón classic, either -- the soothing vocals and relaxing arrangement to "Instinto Humano" shows the group in a better light. The new age piano opening "Rio Miño" gets real boring real quick with schlock tinkling, but the rough vocals and bagpipes (huh?) that enter later at least grab your attention. But Flamenco Chill is definitely wearing thin by Intro's second track, and Howie B takes the obvious flamenco passion tack with an unidentified female singer. The lack of musician credits apart from the members of Chambao is a major oversight. Bottom line: even if you're not real big on flamenco, not real big on acoustic guitar, and not real big on electronica or chill, you'll likely find that Flamenco Chill works surprisingly well as ambient music, the way that Blue Note jazz does on a rainy afternoon -- for a disc and a half, anyway.