Cigala & Tango

Tango and flamenco have elemental, thematic, tonal and rhythmic differences due to their entirely separate, and exceptional, cultural histories. On the evidence of this live album by flamenco singer, Diego El Cigala, marrying them is not a straightforward process. Where his version of Cacho Castaña’s ‘Garganta con Arena’ is rebellious and his take on the Cobián-Cadícamo classic ‘Nostalgias’ interestingly reckless, his attempt to deconstruct Gardél’s ‘El Día que me Quieras’ is a failure. The transmogrification works with the first because it’s not a tango at all, but a pop ballad (about the iconic tango singer Roberto Goyeneche), made popular 15 years ago by Adriana Varela. The second sounds like El Cigala means it, at least, and may have had a few tango-style bad nights. The third is a cheesy blob of a song; the Muppets couldn’t craft a more daft tango hybrid. Stylish support from tango guitarist Juanjo Domínguez, bandoneón legend Néstor Marconi and well-travelled violinist Pablo Agri can’t rescue the songs, and the cameo from Argentinian pop singer Andrés Calamaro doesn’t help. When El Cigala goes on to have a crack at a Kurt Weill number, ‘Youkali’ (with the strings ripped off from ‘Libertango’), and then wraps up the album with a busy, botched version of the Mercedes Sosa standard ‘Alfonsina y el Mar,’ you can’t help feeling the whole experience is, like that Cardiff classic of Half and Half (chips and an Indian curry), a fusion too far.