The first seconds of Procession, the single that premiered Alberto & García’s seventh album, is a magnificent gateway to the universe of the Asturian band. What looks like a bandurria is, in reality, three guitars – one Spanish and two acoustic – deliberately poorly tuned. Then the saxophones, baritone and alto enter. Even the accordion. And so, in just 28 seconds, a certain festive melancholy emerges. A subtle desire to live permanently in a party Prao knowing that you cannot live permanently in a group of Prao.
In the 28th second the voice of Alberto García (38 years old, La Felguera) will appear. “That intentional off-key is a feeling that runs through many parts of the album. We’re looking for the sound of a popular band that isn’t completely clean. Musicians arriving at a party Prao and they play with what they have,” he explains in a telephone conversation. “The album is called Mud for everything that concept encompasses. For the muddy moment we live in as human beings, because we are turning years old and life is becoming a quagmire. But also as a place where our dogs can play – the dogs of the five band members appear on the album cover -, as material from which to create and, above all, as an analogy to kicking in the mud. In music, even if it doesn’t seem like it, there is more mud than anything else”, explains the leader of a band whose five members combine music with other jobs. Postman, guitar teacher or painter. “Professionalism comes seasonally”, says Alberto, historian and musicologist who, when he is not on tour, dedicates himself to graphic design.
Mud, The band’s sixth studio album builds on the pillars that have marked the group since its inception in 2011: Anglo-Saxon pop-rock and Latin American folklore. “They are two sources that continue to distil interesting things. We could say that it is a continuous album, in the sense that we continue to bet on eclecticism, which is a contradiction”, underlines Alberto sarcastically. There’s some rock on the LP (Thirteen, together with Quique González), there is pop (white handkerchief), there’s cumbia (Skull), there is a kind of pasodoble (Mud), a bit of psychedelia (Genghis Khan), an Asturian style bullfight (Procession), Andean song (forest melody) or a bolero (C’est fini). Genres all assigned with the doubts and nuances of a band that prefers to escape certainties. “There is nothing pure,” they add. For Víctor Gil (41 years old, Oviedo), guitarist with electronic studies, Mud It is “the most complete album we have, with the best songs. I think the main challenge we faced was not to repeat ourselves, and we succeeded.”
“In our house we played a lot of music and a lot of Latin American folklore. And at Asturian village festivals there is always Latin music, because emigration has a lot of weight. Then it is up to each person to decide not to stay on the surface or to explore”, says Manuel (31 years old, Oviedo), who has studied saxophone since he was 8, has a degree in Fine Arts, has exhibited the paintings with which he earns a living in various countries and is Alberto’s brother. “I try to use the sax in a way that serves and contributes to the song. I also incorporate sound effects, distort…” From that family musical education comes the broad palette of instruments that make up his melodies. The guitar, bass, drums and keyboard are joined by the legüero bass drum, the Cuban tres, the charango or the quijada de burro.
In the letters of Mud These are the songs that have accompanied the band – completed by drummer Dámaso García (44 years old, Oviedo) and bassist Cristian Leiva (45 years old, Buenos Aires) – since its inception. “The other day I was reading an interview with Antonio López in which he said that there are four or five themes that accompanied him throughout his life, and that what was changing was him. We touch on love in all its aspects, friendship, the way of being in the world… and more prosaic things, which are also important. Daily life and life itself. Like when you see a tourist photographing something specific in your city that you had never noticed,” explains Alberto.
The new album maintains another of Alberto & García’s traditions: collaborations with other artists. Quique González and Guada join a list that already included La MODA, Kevin Johansen, Depedro and Tulsa. “We always look for artists who we admire and with whom we share the same vision of the craft. The collaboration with Quique was possible thanks to the fact that we share a producer – Toni Brunet -. Recording with him was like going to Eurodisney and being with Mickey Mouse. Five minutes with Guada are a gift. They make the album better, more complete. They leave a very special sound photograph”, says Alberto.
Last October 10th, the Albéniz hall in Gijón hosted the first stage of a tour that will take the band to fifteen Spanish cities. In most cases, Alberto & García concerts end up being the party they were looking for. With the audience dancing. Alberto recalls that it was during the pandemic that they realized “the importance of dance in music and in our concerts. People couldn’t move from the venue, so we started organizing chair dancing competitions. Our live shows are designed so that people dance without wanting to. It’s a group moment where solitudes meet and celebrate each other.”
“Within a concert – concludes Alberto – there is room for everything. We like it to be a growing which ends with a party. It’s just that we’re from there. From popular festivals. It’s something we feel very much ours. We know how to have fun. And we like to share it. Even if we are in a land that has many problems. Even though now, in life, things happen to us that until recently we thought were not our concern. It’s a festive melancholy. “The beautiful sadness of the north.”
