![]() Working together with the growing Rivera clan, Imelda's hard work evolved into a family business. Soon, she taught everything she knew about shoemaking to her daughter, brothers, and son-in-law, and Coco taught her own daughters in turn. Needing to support her daughter, Imelda turned to shoemaking as Coco grew up, often making shoes for her own daughter and becoming very good at it. Angered at Héctor for leaving their family (unaware that Hector wanted to return home, but was murdered by Ernesto), Imelda tore his head off the family portrait, obscuring his identity in the family, and decreed music forbidden from then on, blaming it on his disappearance. However, he never returned, leaving Imelda to take care of Coco alone. While Imelda was ready to settle down and raise Coco, Héctor wanted to give his music to the world, so he set out on tour with his friend Ernesto de la Cruz. Their romance soon developed into a marriage, and at eighteen to nineteen years old, Imelda gave birth to a daughter named Coco. As she matured, she eventually fell in love with an aspiring musician named Héctor, partially due to their shared talent in music. ![]() Imelda was born in 1899 in Santa Cecilia, living there with her younger brothers, Felipe and Óscar. She died way before I was born.” ―Miguel, opening narration You see, that woman was my great-great-grandmother, Mamá Imelda. Zazou and his collaborators have given us a record to ponder slowly, deliberately, and purposefully, yet reward us with real fulfillment in the listening experience.“ Music had torn her family apart, but shoes held them all together. This is deeply spiritual ambient music that has as its source of inspiration not only the land, but the human heart and its multiple secretive chambers. These ten pieces, which are poetic, spare, and expertly performed, create a seamless work, one that reflects simultaneously the deserts of Northern Africa, the mountainous loneliness of the Indian plain, and the history of the folk and classical music that comes from the region without a hint of nostalgia or artifice. The actual soundwaves are reflected back as a way of deepening the original sound made on an instrument, pushing it back into itself, to emerge as something fuller, richer, deeper, and more a matter of sound itself than the particular placement of notes and harmonics. Think of Robert Fripp's Frippertronics process without tape recorders, and with less actual repetition and more musical reportage and you get an idea. In other words, the music is mirrored to these performers only as itself, sonically reflected back, one note to the next, without enveloping, or recontextualizing the original sounds in any way. ![]() These musicians present a fresh take on classical Indian and Middle Eastern-Asian classical music, enabled by the most subtle repossessing of the sonic environment without any additional electronic elements layered in or added in any way. They work as a unit and with sonic assistance from trumpeter Nils Petter Molvaer, percussionist Bill Rieflin (formerly of Swans, currently of R.E.M.), pianist Diego Amador, and violinist Zoltán Lantos. This set was recorded in Mumbai with a quartet of musicians called Swara who hail from India and Uzbekistan-Toir Kuziyev (tambur and oud), Milind Raykar (violin), Ronu Majumdar (flute), and Manish Pingle (Indian slide guitar). That said, Zazou may've indeed saved the very best for last. His subsequent efforts were greeted with everything from lukewarm attention in the cultural Philistine wasteland of the United States to rapt celebration in Europe, Africa, and the Far East. He finally scored in the United States with Sahara Blue, which featured his musical collaborations with a number of artists ranging from John Cale and actor Gerard Depardieu to Dead Can Dance, Bill Laswell, and David Sylvian, to name a few. Zazou made a name for himself with European audiences back in the 1980s by virtue of Noir et Blanc his brilliant collaboration with Congolese vocalist Bony Bikaye. French composer and musical auteur Hector Zazou passed away shortly after completing In the House of Mirrors, his final album for the venerable Crammed label in Belgium.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |