Anda Jaleo

Recorded live in Mecina Bombaron in Granada in August 2009, this is an interesting project: Josephine Foster and Víctor Herrero have re-recorded the popular Spanish songs first collected by Federico García Lorca. The poet and playwright Lorca has a near-mythical status, rooted in his murder near Granada during the Spanish Civil War. In 1931, Lorca recorded this set of songs playing the upright piano, parlour-style, for dancer-singer Encarnación Lopez Júlvez, known as La Argentina. Foster has one of the most eccentric voices you'll have heard in this kind of context in a long time. Yet, kicking off with ‘Los Cuatro Muleros’ (The Four Muleteers), a glorious song of desire, Foster emulates La Argentina's classical trills and sensual dynamics, enhancing the idiosyncratic nature of the original project. Replacing Lorca's piano with Spanish and Portuguese guitars, Herrero accompanies exquisite songs such as ‘Anda Jaleo’, indelibly marked in the Spanish psyche, with aplomb. Foster accompanies herself on castanets, harp, guitar and spoons which, coupled with Herrero's percussive approach to the anis bottle, conveys the quirkiness of the project.

Comparing the glorious original recording to this tribute is salutary: Foster and Herrero have captured the mood and while their style sounds wacky, the atmosphere is spot on. This is definitely material that could earn them a cult following. If you fancy something a little different, look no further: the beautiful lyrics are easy to follow as the recycled paper liner notes contains all texts in Spanish and English