The new face of flamenco

Jim Carroll reports from Barcelona on how Ojos de Brujo have reinvented flamenco for a new generation.

Over and over again, Ojos de Brujo's Max and Panko talk about mestizo music.

Mestizo is a Latin word for mixed ancestry, but it's also a tag to describe the music produced by Ojos de Brujo and many other bands who have emerged from Barcelona over the last decade. We might call it multicultural; they call it mestizo.

In the case of the eight-strong Ojos de Brujo, their mestizo starts with flamenco before going off in every possible direction. The outfit's Barí album, released in 2002 and still selling like sombreros to sunburnt tourists, is awash with flamenco's new flings.

Setting flamenco up for dates with dashing Med funk, smouldering hip-hop breaks, strident punk rock and sultry Asian beats, Ojos de Brujo's sound is as vibrant, energetic and colourful as the city which spawned them. Add in a burning, global social conscience and you have a bright and breezy set of rabble-rousing anthems.

It's early evening in Mataro, a little seaside town just north of Barcelona. Ojos de Brujo are soundchecking for a show later that night in the city's park, one of a number of live dates they're doing this summer in-between recording the long awaited follow-up to Barí.

"It was flamenco which brought us together, it's the common link," says Panko as the flamenco strums of guitarist Paco Lomeña waft from the stage. "For example, before we met, Xavi [Turull, percussionist] was doing Indian music mixed with flamenco, while Ramón [Giménez, guitarist] was doing thrash metal with flamenco."

As far as the pair are concerned, there's nothing new about such fusion. "Music has always been influenced by other music, so it's wrong to say that there's such a thing as a pure flamenco," says Max. "There are traces of Arabic music and African music and all kinds of things in flamenco."

Yet Panko knows that when people hear the word, certain images spring to mind. "Flamenco was something that the Franco governments promoted like bullfighting to attract tourists to Spain. But there's a kind of flamenco which is like protest music. It expresses sadness because you have nothing, or pain because you are in jail or working in a mine.

"Of course, this kind of ghetto flamenco was never exported; only the kitsch flamenco received any sort of promotion abroad. Real flamenco is a folk music which is handed down from father to son and mother to daughter, and it's this melodic richness of the music, the open nature of the music, which we took onboard for the band."

It has proven to be a contagious mix. Since the 2002 release of Barí on their own independent label, the band's allure has spread beyond Catalonia and Spain to reach most corners of Europe and America. Awards, acclaim and applause have brought massive sales and sell-out tours. As Panko remarks about the early days, "we certainly didn't see it developing into what it is today, we were not making music to get rich." When the various members came together in 1997, their aim was to do something different. "It started out, like all the best things I suppose, with the aim of having fun," remembers Max. Early street jams developed the music to the extent that more and more people wanted to hear them, so it was time to move indoors.

"At the time, there were loads of bands in the city doing their own thing and doing so successfully," says Panko. "But then electronic music came along, venues turned into clubs and the musicians found themselves on the street. They had to find something new to do or start mixing it with the DJs. Things like Sonar meant that the focus was on clubs, not musicians. But in the last couple of years, I think this trend has changed. Now, it's musicians who are on the up, especially those playing mestizo music."

When ODB started out, Barcelona was still on a post-Olympics high. The city has always been a magnet for people from all over Spain, Europe and Africa seeking new thrills and experiences. In the wake of the Olympics and attendant media attention, however, those arriving at Placa Catalunya were coming from much further afield.

"There always were strong African sections in the city, but now there are lively South American areas and Eastern European areas too," says Max. "All of this migration brings new ideas and these feed into the music. Barcelona is a melting pot because it cannot be any other way. It's still a young city and migration is happening here more and more, so there's this really rich and vibrant fusion of cultures, this mestizo culture, always going on."

When prompted about emerging bands from Barcelona, both admit that they're not as clued in as they once were. After all, since the release of Barí, they've spent more time away from the city than at home.

"We've been on the road before that album was released," says Panko. "We were playing tunes from Barí a year before it was in the shops. Then, it came out and it got really big in Spain and it hasn't stopped since outside Spain." Remarkably, they've managed to independently release and promote the album worldwide. By doing deals with like-minded companies in different territories, they've shown that you can be successful and still maintain your integrity.

It's hard to keep track of everything. "You learn from your mistakes," Max says. "Sometimes you hear your music being used on TV to advertise a burger bar or to soundtrack a bullfight and you go what? It's hard to be on top of all of this when you are just an independent label based in Spain. We don't have an ideology section to chase everyone."

Naturally, big labels and corporations have sought to attach themselves to the band. According to Panko, Sony and Virgin both offered recording deals and Coca-Cola wanted to sponsor a huge tour. The band said no. And it will always be no.

"There are so many different ways to tour without having to take the easy money," maintains Max. "You can get in touch with people who are doing things in local communities and work with them. There's no point always complaining about global stuff if you don't work with the local collectives and promoters and festivals and find different ways to do things.

"Without the local input, you just end up with a global airport culture."

Ojos de Brujo play the Festival of World Cultures on August 27th