Simply labeling Barcelona's Ojos de Brujo a nuevo flamenco group is a little like calling Disney World an amusement park: it's way too inadequate a description to convey the super-sized riches found within. Although Ojos de Brujo do indeed use flamenco (and, to a lesser degree, rumba) as its starting point, from the beginning the band sought to explode any confinements and ignore all constraints. Barí, the group's formal 2002 introduction to the world music community, was a revelation in sound, drawing beats and melodic suggestions from not just the Spanish diaspora but wherever it wanted to: hip-hop, rock, funk, dance music, reggae/dub, and more. Techarí continues the growth spurt and builds upon the foundation laid by Barí. On the track "Todo Tiende," you'll find blistering Indian percussion and bhangra alongside an insistent, tough rap-informed vocal by singer Marina Abad, all layered over the furiously strummed guitar of Ramon Giménez. Roughly two-thirds into the song, the band breaks into an ethereal, quasi-psychedelic space jam that both showcases Giménez as a spellbinding soloist and confirms Ojos de Brujo's ability to take off on jazz-like flights. "Runali" begins as one of the more traditionally flamenco-rooted tunes on the album before inserting a hip-hop mid-section that, rather than throw off the mood, unexpectedly complements it. "Corre Lola Corre" matches Abad's multi-layered vocal to a droopy reggae beat, and "Respira"'s stop-start patchwork rhythm juxtaposes an industrial, clinical, metallic scrunch to Abad's luring sensuality. Guests on Techarí include Asian Dub Foundation's Prithpal Rajput, Faada Freddy of the African rap group Daara J, and British/Indian artist Nitin Sawhney, but Ojos de Brujo don't need the international cast; within their own ranks they've seemingly got the whole globe covered.
© Jeff Tamarkin /TiVo