The Album Club: "Bola" by Agustin Carbonell "Bola"
 

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Get some flamenco in your life! Review the latest album in this thread only please. Dancing, swirling of long Spanish skirts and the clicking of castanets will not be frowned upon.

Haven't heard a single note, but I'm expecting to like this. I'll know within a day or two, if I don't get distracted by something else. Crossing fingers for at least an 8/10 album after a string of dissapointments.

I've given it a few listens, first on the ride home from work and then again in my listening room. It was enjoyable in both environments.

I've very little knowledge of flamenco music and the closest thing to it in my library is the ever-expanding Gypsy Jazz - Jazz Manouche CD series. As a novice to the genre, I couldn't listen to it critically or analytically, which freed me to experience it intuitively and openly without preconceptions or expectations of what it should be.

Overall, it was enjoyable and functioned well as sonic wallpaper for my busying about the house, and equally well as a sound bed to sink into while disappearing from the space occupied by the other patrons on mass transit. No particular tracks stood out as a-sides, it was just a smooth album showcasing the flamenco style. The musicianship seemed proficient and skillful, though again I don't know what to look for in a "good" vs "bad" flamenco performance. The touches of strings were most welcome; I only wish there were more of them (for my personal taste). I was a little put off by the clapping which seemed a bit bland and unenthused for such a spirited genre. In the past I recall a more vibrant energy from artists like Andrew Bird's Bowl of Fire on albums like Oh! The Grandeur. But perhaps a more laid back and mellow vibe is just what Carbonell is aiming for here.

All in all a satisfying record. If ever I am prompted to play flamenco, this would certainly be an album I would reach for.

6.5/10

Unless you mean that the clapping on this album in particular was unenthusiastic (haven't listened to it yet), it's funny that you say that since clapping is very common in flamenco.

I've listened to these tracks several times now sort of randomly and out of order and some more times than others. I feel like there's a lot of really good guitar playing here, but also like the compositions at times feel a bit aimless.

Different tracks have different things backing up the core acoustic guitar playing and it varies how well it works.

There's a track where a man is singing that I did not enjoy all that much. His voice isn't very nice and I feel like I've heard much more nuanced singers than him. A squeaky female vocal sits in the background of another track and, again, not really doing it for me. I'm usually very on board with vocals in Spanish and Portugese music, but here, I'm sort of left happy that this album is mainly instrumental.

The extra instrumentation works a lot better though, with the strings in "Galicia" and the horns in "Travesía de la Comadre" working especially well.

As a guitar player, I feel like Agustin Carbonell is clearly gifted, but I have heard guitar players whose style I like better. He leans a little more towards the technical side than playing with feeling, in my opinion, but he is very skilled and there still is a good degree of nuance and dynamics to his performance.

I have heard flamenco and fado that moved me way more than this did, so I don't think it makes sense for me to give it a very high score.
I enjoy it, but I firmly believe that I have yet to hear anywhere near the best in this style.

The highlights for me were the tracks "Al Chacon", "Galicia" and particularly "Travesía de la Comadre".

The album works well as a whole, having enough variation in pace, style, feel and instrumentation that it doesn't get old.

I'll give it a solid 7/10.

Yeah, I've listened to it twice or three times now and I think I'm done. While I have nothing against flamenco at all, I have no particular desire to explore it, and what's here, while the guitar is obviously excellent, doesn't encourage me to change that opinion. I agree with MicShazam about the vocals - both times a vocalist is used it sounds pretty awful to me (the lady sounds like she's just wailing) - maybe this is how vocals in flamenco go, I don't know. But I definitely prefer it when it's just the music. Standouts would be "Minerico", "Galacia" and the opener, but there's nothing here I don't like, apart from the two tracks with vocals on them. There's just nothing I really love. Not for me, sorry. 5/10

This guy is obviously a great guitarist. I don't know **** about flamenco or doing the fandango or the tango or whatever the **** dance they get up to but I do know I don't do it and I hate watching that ****. So the way I see it all that extra rhythm **** needs to go. In fact, Carbonell needs to kick the bassoonist, the Cajón (whatever the **** that is) player, the contrabassist, for God's sake the ****ing handclappers lol, the percussionist, the pianist, and the violinist to ****ing curb. Get Rick Rubin in there and strip this **** down. Ain't nobody except maybe those jerkoff dancers want to hear all that bull****. Just Bola and his guitar. Like on Minerico. That's the best track.

Still the superb flamenco guitar work makes this a winner. Liked it. 3/5 stars.

I'm not intimately familiar with flamenco music by any means, but I thought this was pretty impressive overall. The world of Latin music in general is so vast and wide spanning depending on the country of origin that any one album isn't going to give you a complete picture, but Agustin definitely has the chops....especially considering that this was supposedly his debut recording. My favorite piece here was probably 'Galicia', mostly because the piano was so prominent and let the track stand out amidst the typical guitar / handclap workouts that characterize other flamenco albums I've dabbled in. It has a certain 'refined" feeling to it that I get when I listen to compositions like the Concierto de Aranjuez, etc.

Overall, a good ear-opening experience and one of the more interesting albums to show up in this club so far.

8 out of 10

Impressive how much of a consensus there seems to be so far!

I gave this album 6 or 7 listens and although I'm not familiar enough with the genre or the guitarist to know if this would be considered good or great, I enjoyed most of what I heard. The only tracks I didn't like were the tracks with vocals. If the album had been all instrumental, I would've rated it an 8/10 but I thought the vocals weakened the songs they appeared in and caused me to lower my score. One in particular sounded like a child yelling and shrieking to the music, completely ruining what would otherwise have been one of the more interesting tunes on the album.
All of the tunes sounded a bit different from each other in style and interesting enough for me to give the album multiple listens, and I liked this album enough that it makes me want to check into more of this guitarist's work and listen to more, so that's a plus in the album club for me.

6.5/10

Flamenco recordings traditionally sound very brittle to the non aficionado - the guitar sounds bright even in the low register due to use of thinly carved cypress pine in its construction, palmas (clapping), cajón and taconeo (dancers’ footwork) all sound very trebly and there is generally no bass of any kind. On top of that the singing is brittle and microtonal. The world of flamenco is cult-like and insular, and flamenco artists often don't care too much about what those outside their scene think of their art. This arrogance has its downsides, but it does mean flamenco has kept its own vibe as it evolves rather than simply becoming diluted.

For me Bola does an excellent job here, taking great liberties but staying very true to the forms. The more stripped back numbers are outstanding, out of the ensemble numbers for me the farruca ('Galicia') works the best showcasing Bernardo Parrilla on violin. The siguiriya with Enrique Morente on vocals is maybe my favorite track of the album. I can't quite give this album full marks as it doesn't quite match the compositional vision of Paco de Lucia's Siroco or Vicente Amigo's De mi Corazón al Aire, but I chose this album as it's much less well-known. For me it's a solid
9/10

It was good choice and forced a lot of us out of our boxes.

As an amateur classical guitarist myself, I think I have a better appreciation than most for the amount of work that went into this album. The compositions are complex and jazzy, and manage to dazzle at almost every moment, and they aren't simple trifles either. These aren't pieces that you can learn in a day; these are pieces that you spend weeks working on until you may finally perfect them.

And man, doesn't this album just coax beauty out of the most unexpected tones, timbres, melodies, and harmonies. If I heard what sounded like a little girl yelling as loud as possible on any other album, I would probably take off my headphones and cease listening immediately. But on this album, "Gina" for me is a highlight. In fact, its fast pace and wild melodies had me coming back to the song several times even before I had finished the entire album.

Sometimes the album sank into a soft patch, and these moments where I had a bit more time to consider the music were generally where the album suffered a bit more. Perhaps I was simply thinking too much during songs like "Galicia" to really get into the music. Or perhaps when the rapidly shifting chord progressions of the other songs were slowed down a bit, some of the mystery of discovering how everything fit together was sheared away.

Sometimes the songs were a bit too short, as with "Coral", I wanted to savor the ideas contained within just a bit more before they disappeared. But all too soon, the track was over and I was plunged into the next piece. Somehow, this and my former grievance however feel more like failings of my own perception rather than of the album, just as you wouldn't criticize art because it was blurry when you weren't wearing your prescription lenses.

Anyway, I've gone on much too long about this album already, and I fear I will only continue to ramble aimlessly unless I put a lid on it now. So my final thoughts are thus: this album is a hidden gem, as far as I can tell there are only about one to two thousand people alive today who are aware of its existence, which may sound like a lot but in the grand scheme of things is very little. The first half of the album is consistently energetic and exciting, the second half falls into the tendency of tracks that are both stimulating and pleasing to the ear but not catchy in the slightest (they are still enjoyable). Other than that, there's not too much I'd like to say that I already haven't. 8/10

On my list of favorite to least favorite albums of all time:

Glenn Branca - The Ascension
Agustin Carbonell - Bola
Grateful Dead - American Beauty

Honestly a couple of really outstanding review texts from Aloysius and TechnicLePanther :clap:

I was thinking about what Aloysius said with flamenco leaning to the trebly side of things. That could be a thing that keeps me at an arms distance, since I tend to complain about songs in all sorts of genres if they feel unusually trebly to me. It didn't cross my mind when I listened to this album myself, originally.
I'm not sure I want to return to Bola again and again to try and develop an appreciation for it - but I do want to take a closer look at flamenco. I think I could get along with it well after some adjustment and exploration.

Alo's flamenco journal might come in handy for me :)