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Xavier Panades - CD Review |
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www.mySpace.com/xpanades |
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By Fred
(Bristol Rocks) |
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Some people like eating
Snails, a lot of people have tried them and don’t eat them
again……some people won’t try them because they are not adventurous
enough, or they just know that they won’t like them…..so they just
don’t bother!?
What is this man on about I
hear you sigh……is this Bristol Rocks or Bristol Cooks…..but bear
with me for a moment….
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Whilst this is a clumsy
analogy, and I am certainly not comparing Xavier to a bowl of
snails…what I am trying to say is that because something may seem a
bit weird to most people it could be absolute heaven to another……and
this Album is definitely not your average! Perhaps I am the wrong
reviewer to do justice to this but I am probably representative of
the majority of Bristol’s music fans and probably representative of
Bristol’s unsophisticated eating habits when it comes to
molluscs…..oh and I can’t speak or understand Catalan either!
Anyhow…Xavier Panades is a
most interesting character….not easily pigeonholed but he is a kind
of Catalan speaking poet, with his narrative accompanied by a
pleasant if sparse musical accompaniment of mainly acoustic guitar.
It probably doesn’t matter that the average listener here in England
doesn’t understand the meaning of the words; Xavier’s voice has a
great quality that sounds like an arthouse movie soundtrack, often
delivered in contrasting characters, like a village storyteller from
an earlier age.
If you like poetry and
dramatic art…oh and Snails, you might well find Xavier Panades
irresistible. A bit too off the wall for some (this simple reviewer
included)…..I prefer a nice Steak myself! |
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| Second Opinion -
Kevin (Bristol Rocks) |
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| Presentation:
The artwork with this CD is as bizarre and arresting, but effective
as Xavier’s Album. The photomontage on the cover is a reference to
the Catalan surrealist tradition. It was produced by Joan
Fontcuberta, a Catalan world-known graphic artist in 1974 a year
before Franco’s death.
It combines a huge ear against a vertical wall, made up o tree bark,
and with shrubs on its top, with irregular dark lines and splashes
coming down. The combination of both the cover and back linked
together inside the album, and the ears on the CD disc itself with
the cover’s wall was assembled by Xavier Panadès. The art work
suggests “walls have ears”, like Xavier’s music, the walls around
commercial music have ears and heart! |
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Overall
Impression:
I
see where Fred is coming from in the review above (apart from the
snail thing that is) and I find this a little out of my normal
listening range. Like the majority of us limited Brits I don't have
a second language (although learning one has been a New Year
resolution many times).
Although initially without the ability to understand, the tracks on
this album sound like a Catalonian nutter passionately orating over
a pleasant but basic acoustic guitar track.
After reading the English translation of the poetic
lyrics, are abrasive and polemical as much as the artists who have
heavily influenced Xavier’s art (see below). The
earth,
green issues, humanity and the
Catalonian Countries’ culture,
are the elements intensively felt each second of the
album. |
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| Recording quality:
It consists of an acoustic guitar, a singer and a harp. It would be
difficult to mess up the recording of this minimalist content and
they don't. |
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Content:
Sounds like a Catalonian passionately orating over a
pleasant but basic acoustic guitar track.
This is of course my opinion based upon my limited exposure to
Catalonian nutters and my inability to transcribe Catalonian
totally. Xaviers CD is most certainly 'Art Jim, but not as we know
it'
It combines to perfection, the three indispensable
elements of
the Catalan music: the
expression of the body (passionate), acting (mysterious), and the
temperamental rhapsodies (unpredictable). The result is very
bizarre, and it universalizes and modernizes
her mediaeval, Francophone, and the recently
rock
roots. In fact, Many people consider “tenebres I teranyines
(darkness and spiderwebs)” as the first folf trash-metal song ever!
The album is splashed with
rock and psychedelic
influences of
Pau Riba (Catalan greatest rock artist), the passionate
recitations
of Ovidi
Montllor and Tom
Waits, Ozzy Osbourne’s sharp edge, and the extreme
vocalizations of
Tom Araya,
Jacques Le
Brel, and
Max Calavera.
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Xavier Panades and the C.A.T. (Creative Artistic Temperament), a new
form of transcendent music has been born.
It breaks through any musical classicism so that people can directly
experience the feeling that the words are expressing, regardless of
their complexity or the language in which are expressed. It is
heavily laced with Xavier’s talent to switch and combine poetry,
comedy, acting and tireless recitation.
Both artists are a combination of two extremes working in total
harmony. Errol is calm, mysterious and quiet, like a reversed
volcano, in huge contrast to Xavier with his chaotic bursts of
feeling and Rabelaisian passion. |
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| For a more enlightened idea of what Xavier is about please read
James Hollingsworth's excellent article linked below. |
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Xavier Panades
Interview by James Hollingsworth |
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