Canciones de Isaac

Breezes, birdsong, crickets, leaf-litter, the hum of Caracas by night, and the more serene sounds of daytime walks through Pyrenean meadows give us a peek into the aural world of Isaac Sasson, born in Venezuela, based in Barcelona. There is something organic, too, about the music that he plays over the 14 tracks of this, his seventh record.

Sasson has a gentle and lilting voice that speaks to us as to an intimate friend of places, relatives, missed ones and memories as he strums and plucks along on bandola llanera, charango and cuatro – three traditional ‘guitars’ from his mother country – as well as percussion and wind instruments. While a nostalgic, even melancholy quality seams the entire album, there’s also a sense – through the persistent, metronomic rhythms of ‘Mare Mare’, in the almost whispered petition of ‘calma, paz, amor, luz’ – that something hopeful can be tapped through the private art of music-making. The soft singing style turns Sasson’s voice into an instrument as much as a source of stories. Not once does he let rip or lose it; even a song called ‘The Glorious Gallop of My White Horse’ is more of a trot. Canciones de Isaac, if somewhat whimsical and fey, is a deeply personal and revealing meditation on home.