The UK's Crystal Fighters are reinventing Spanish folk. How?
Crystal Fighters aren't Spanish, but you could be forgiven for assuming they were. The title of their debut album, Star of Love, is an acronym for sol, Spanish for sun. The music within is based on a mix of contemporary dubstep and techno beats and Basque folk melodies. It uses traditional Basque instruments such as the txalaparta (imagine a wooden xylophone played by two people), the danbolin (a sort of snare drum), and the txistu (a pipe whistle).
The band's name and music were inspired by the manuscript of an unfinished opera by the Basque grandfather of one-time backing singer Laure Stockley, written just before his death. Star of Love is an elegy to, and extrapolation of, his ideas and poetic musings on the nature of existence, the ineffability of love and the omnipotence of the sun.
All credit to Crystal Fighters, then, for turning what could have been a worthy academic exercise into a carnival of rhythms. And you should see them live: a recent gig at Heaven in London drew 1,000 fans keen to witness their mesmerising mash-up of old and new, the serious and the silly. On stage, Sebastian Pringle, a thoughtful Home Counties longhair, turns into a frontman speaking in bursts of what can only be described as Spanish patois over the group's peculiar Castillian rave. It's a bit like seeing Lorca fronting a cross between the Incredible String Band and the Chemical Brothers.
With his scarves and "coat like a curtain", Pringle resembles a hippy version of the Doctor Who character. His old friend, multi-instrumentalist Gilbert Vierich, is the loquacious one who claims his father, a boxer, sparred with Muhammad Ali. Graham Dickson is the American guitarist and graduate of Edinburgh University who jumps around topless on stage as though he's moonlighting from the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Spanish vocalist Mimi Borelli completes the lineup on record, though she too has since left the band.
It was Dickson's DIY forays into "trippy electronica with rap" that attracted the attention of Vierich in 2007; a mutual friend introduced them and, with Dickson in Scotland and Pringle making laptop dance music in London, Vierich was "caught in the crosshairs" of the divergent sounds. When the three men moved in together, in London, and were given the manuscript of the Basque opera, Crystal Fighters were born.
Far from being Hispanophiles, it is only since acquiring the manuscript that the band have developed an interest in the Basque region's music. Now, they are experts: they recently recorded a Guardian podcast on Spain's early-80s punk and electro scenes and are about to record a cover of a track by feted synthpop group Golpes Bajos, while Pringle is learning the language and will happily discuss "post-Franco mythology". They will soon return to the Navarre district where they have many friends. The area is, they say, "known for intense raves", and you can hear traditional music on the street. "We love the fact you can experience both extremes," says Pringle.
Despite its esoteric provenance, Dickson sees no reason why Crystal Fighters' music shouldn't "appeal to the masses". Pringle believes there to be "blue water for pop songs combining dance music and Basque folk". Who do they consider forebears of their mix of strangeness and accessibility? "Alabama 3," proposes Pringle, to gentle derision. "Kate Bush?" suggests Dickson. They settle on Arthur Brown, the flamboyant late-60s hitmaker with a penchant for setting his headgear on fire.
Not that the band lack serious intent; far from it. They don't want to reveal too much about Stockley and her grandfather, his demise, or why she left the band early on, suffice to say that their music and lyrics "come from a personal connection ? it's not something we just came up with. That's why we're so excited about it."
Now all they have to do is put up with people's attempts to classify what it is they do. "We're not trying to think of what we are," Vierich concludes. "It might confuse us into thinking what we do is unoriginal." And with their bizarre lattice of poetic lyrics, jackhammer beats and Latino-rasta polemic, that's hardly likely.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2011/mar/28/crystal-fighters-basque-dance-music
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