PhilPaine.com

It would be hard to name a musi­cal influ­ence that isn’t to be found in the first two albums by Catalun­yan musi­cian Pablo Díaz-Reixa, aka El Guin­cho. His myspace page describes his music as “pop/tropical/club”, but that hard­ly begins to list the eclec­tic sources that he puts togeth­er on his Roland SP-404 sam­pling work­sta­tion. There’s a resem­blance to Ani­mal Col­lec­tive’s work, but it would­n’t be mis­tak­en for it. Noth­ing comes across as pon­der­ous­ly seri­ous — every piece is clear­ly designed to be fun to lis­ten to. It’s more “par­ty music” than “arty music”, even though it is tech­ni­cal­ly elab­o­rate. The first album, Folías (2007) has some nice bits, but Ale­gran­za! (2008) has the out­stand­ing work. I par­tic­u­lar­ly like the catchy, almost high-life “Fata Mor­gana”, “Kalise”, with its man­ic steel-band con­tin­uo, and most of all, the grand, many-lay­ered “Buenos Mat­ri­mo­nios Ahí Fuera”.