EVERY GENRE PROJECT - May 5 - Rock andaluz
Genre of the Day - Rock andaluz
Album of the Day - Recuerdos de mi tierra by Mezquita (1979)
May 5, 2024
Andalusia’s arid, sun-withered terrain is often said to hold a particular magic. There’s the massive coast looking out towards a vast continent below. There’s the beating heart of Cordoba that once stood as the largest city in Europe when the region was under the Umayyad Caliphate. Out of its rich history and sense of worldly mystique, the iconic flamenco was born. It’s a genre that pops up often as an influence on this column, speaking to its eternal musical salience. Take Rosalía as an example: the avant-garde singer’s entry into music was as a student at the flamenco program that accepts just one pupil per year at La Escola Superior de Música de Catalunya.
Who better to reinterpret flamenco than nerdy prog rockers in the late ‘70s? That’s a question up to your own interpretation. But combining flamenco with the unwieldy, head-spinning approaches of progressive rock does seem an intriguing ambition. Spain was freshly freed from the clutches of dictatorial Franco, and one can imagine that musicians felt a tad more hopeful and creative. Embracing the rich history of Andalusia with the prospect of a brighter future, bands went all in on incorporating flameno instrumentation and melodies alongside imagery of the gorgeous fusion architecture of the region to stamp their pride. This movement was known as rock andaluz.
Perhaps flamenco endures so successfully because it’s a true melding of worlds. Adding prog rock is only one chapter of its massive saga. Its origins lie as much in Andalusia as much as they do in India, where the Romani people for whom the genre is named and who helped create it migrated from, and in the music of the Moors. This blending culminated in flamenco becoming an established phenomenon by the late 1700s. Flamenco is partly defined by its distinctive chord sequence, which sways through the Phrygian mode, known to bring intensity to music through its use of half steps. It sets it apart from other forms of western music by adding a sonic intrigue that makes it iconic.
With this music theory context, it makes even more sense to me why prog rockers in Andalusia would be especially interested in bringing the sounds of their region into their music, as flamenco possesses such distinctive musical qualities. Not every prog rocker has that to draw from. Mezquita makes good use of it, but I did notice that the line between their prog rock and their flamenco is sometimes more sharply divided than anticipated. The first track “Recuerdos De Mi Tierra” sends spiraling guitars out to space before turning to the dusty earth with flamenco instrumentation and doleful singing eventually joined by galactic synths. The flamenco and more familiar prog rock are often split into clear sections, with flamenco being used as more of an accoutrement. The album’s most enrapturing moment that attains the allure this combo entails is “Suicidio”; the vocalist unleashes his full power with melismatic runs that call back to flamenco’s Romani and Moor influences over hazy guitars and reverberating synths and bells. Mezquita succeeds at taking the listener to a Duned-out version of Andalusia, one where the future meets a history as complicated as its intricate mosaics.