Every creative process is necessarily subject to the essential nourishment provided by life experiences, but in the same way its expression needs to find the right moment to activate its gestation process. The veteran Navarrese musician, Josetxo Zugaldia, worked on different and very diverse projects, a disparity equally applicable to the locations where he has resided, from the United States to Barcelona, he found that ideal environment with the arrival of the pandemic, which beyond leaving us dramatic moments and images, in certain cases, As is the case with us, that -obligatory- seclusion led to a fruitful encounter with oneself. An EP emerged from this situation, “Helpless Love”which has been conveniently expanded and complemented to result in a self-titled album that places its author in the classic imaginary of American sounds, which he approaches indistinctly, and with equal agility, whether to settle into a relaxed pose or to spur the most powerful and energetic nerve.
A double sonorous personality, converted into multiple each time both registers are called to cohabit, which is manifested through a songbook distributed equally when seeking its presentation under an acoustic accompaniment as a more unleashed one resulting from accepting the mandate. of electric fury. Different musical perimeters through which he roams, with the solvency and tranquility that his technical solvency provides, a quintet that also finds in the figure of the producer, Ion De Luisyour particular guide when it comes to handling with absolute knowledge a compass that guides you towards the destination that offers a more welcoming and full environment for each of the identities that the songs display.
A musical direction that, despite the controlled and well-planned turns it makes, proves to be a clear connoisseur of the destiny called to conquer, a royal command of the helm in that area that clashes head-on with the content, not with its elaboration, of some texts dictated by the verb of existential uncertainty, spreading the wings of discouragement in a song like “Summer 19”, presented under some imposing riffs of “ledzeppelinian” descent that nevertheless opts in its development for a more melodic beat, using teachings -without its hypnotic depth- by Iron Butterfly or Blue Oyster Cult, whose content is helped to lighten by a concise but precise string section. Hard-rock exercises that continue in the boogie step performed by “The Wege”, a particularly restrained and elegant representation of Status Quo, Humble Pie or the Stones. Neatness in the staging that does not prevent him from making the guitar of “Just A Song” scratch with the intensity that Neil Young’s Crazy Horse boasts or from looking majestic in the mid-tempo funk cadence that is “Happy Sunday Afternoons”, not so much a reconciliation with the mood as an evasive landscape of the madding crowd.
Although “Ferm”, represented by the relief produced by crying sung to commemorate the disappearance of loved ones, and especially the beautiful “My Nook”, with its melancholic figure of country-rock similar to Blue Rodeo, continue brandishing their plugged-in instruments to recreate a particularly intimate nature, their natural association establishes links with those pieces that unleash passion through a mostly acoustic ornamentation, such as a “Sao Paulo Blues”, where it condenses the stress produced by said great city, which he adopts a fingerpicking touch to sing with that narrative accent of Phil Ochs but immersed in the nostalgia of Fred Neil. A minimalist and evocative emotional climate that “Bayonet”, which is helped in its mission by the appearance of a chilling violin sound and enchanting female choirs, shares with the painful romanticism of “Helpless Love”.
Despite the consensual exchange that the songs on this album make of the electric framework and one more stripped of voltage, and their respective modes of expression, both sensibilities do not represent different faces of this project, because there is an interpretation done with pause and subtlety that is common currency in the stylistic exercise that addresses each of the themes. Hence, this supposed transformation is nothing more than different coordinates of the same musical map, one that, giving value to its cover, behaves like brushstrokes of warm colors that nevertheless swirl turbulently around its creator. Chromatic battle that serves to decorate a very estimable album that gravitates towards an atmosphere of despondency, or at least of restlessness, that although it makes us sigh because it means the beginning of an extensive career, above all, thanks to its ample self-entity, it It encourages you to savor it as it deserves, endowed with that addictive feeling that certain musicians know how to find to turn their uncertainty into a beautiful portrait.
Josetxo Zugaldia de Josetxo Zugaldia