Gitana Mora

This new release from La Banda Morisca comes with an attractive 35-page booklet (in Spanish only) containing florid journalism along with some academic texts. Although the latter are rather dry, they offer some fascinating information about female poets of Al-Andalus and one in particular, named Wallada, who was writing around a thousand years ago. It raises your hopes of inspired and informed musical investigation but, unfortunately, the band don’t seem to have got the memo. Other than one track adapting Wallada’s words, the album sounds more like pub rockers in kaftans than musicologists.

Instruments such as the oud, saz and tarota (a traditional Catalan oboe) are backed by electric bass and kit drums. The array of luminous sound colours gets buried in a dense production, like a bird of paradise in lead boots. One or two tracks, such as ‘Wahiriya’, are lighter and more spacious, giving a refreshing sense of how attractive this music can be. However, the bombastic ‘Tres Morillas’ and the unimaginative remix suggest instead a talented band looking for a direction, but getting lost in the process.