TAS In Session: El Guincho

Pablo Díaz-Reixa, better known as El Guincho, made his mark with 2008's gleeful mélange of textures and rhythms, Alegranza!, but he's found his stride in an even more impressive way with his latest release, Pop Negro. The album, a giddy and crafty mix of dance, Tropicália, funk, Afrobeats, dubstep, electronica and anything else Díaz-Reixa dug up in his production kitchen, might be one of the most exuberant, breezy releases of the year. Curious about the album's title? The translation for "Pop" in Catalan (Díaz-Reixa lives in Barcelona, but was raised in the Canary Islands) is actually "octopus."

Díaz-Reixa, accompanied by a bassist and a guitarist, came by The Alternate Side earlier this fall and not only played a couple of live tracks from Pop Negro, but also chatted with Alisa Ali about the producers and tracks he loves and why it's unlikely you're ever going to see his new NSFW video for "Bombay" on MTV:

Alisa Ali: I really enjoy your new record Pop Negro as much as I enjoyed your last one, Alegranza!. It’s really joyful music; it’s hard to be in a bad mood when you listen to it. Your music has the ability to transport you somewhere else, somewhere idyllic or beautiful. Does that have to do with the fact that you come from somewhere very beautiful, the Canary Islands?

Pablo Díaz-Reixa: Yeah, I guess so. I’m never in a good mood when we’re finished playing a show (laughs). I’m thinking about what we did wrong, the sounds and everything. But it’s true, it seems that people like our music, enjoy the rhythms and the big beats.

Alisa:You live in Barcelona now, but I heard you did go back to the Canary Islands to become a wind surfer to raise money to finish the record.

Pablo: Yeah, for tourists, to instruct windsurfing. I did that to pay for the mixing.

Alisa: And a video that you did for Pop Negro that features your cousins?

Pablo: Yeah, yeah. I didn’t do it, though, they did it. They took their camera and they did the whole thing.

Alisa: It’s called “Alfre and Carlos Show Us How To Enjoy Pop Negro.” Which is basically those guys surfing. But you studied film?

Pablo: Kind of, communications like TV and that sort of stuff. But [I learned] nothing. It’s a big lie! Four years of hanging out in the library.

Alisa: You also did another video for “Bombay.” I love that song. But the video is weird.

Pablo: Why?

Alisa: There’s a lot of boobs in the video!

Pablo: Well, there’s a lot of boobs in the world (laughs).

Alisa: There’s a lady without a shirt on smashing eggs in her face.

Pablo: She’s pretty, right?

Alisa: She is pretty and it’s hot the way she smashes those eggs in her face. What does it mean? I don’t understand?

Pablo: There’s no secret meaning! It’s just a lady smashing eggs. It’s a pretty common thing in Spain (laughs).

Alisa: You’re in the video too. Are you Carl Sagan? What can you tell me about the cosmos?

Pablo: Well, nothing, but I used to love the series “Cosmos.” I used to watch it as a little kid. My mom was really into new age-y stuff. Like tarot. She was really into that so she bought me the whole thing I used to watch it after school.

Alisa: So who did the video for you?

Pablo: A guy named Nicolás Mendez. They have a company called Canada and make great stuff. They mostly work for advertising but also for free for bands they like.

Alisa: Did you get them to do it for free?

Pablo: Noooo. They were expensive! But they were great, they work with so much passion. It was great, I love it.

Alisa: It’s not your typical music video. I don’t think it would be played on MTV here. Just because of the ….

Pablo: Boobs.

Alisa: Right. Is it played in Spain?

Pablo: Of course!

Alisa: Of course. You guys are so much more free. We’re so repressed.

[video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJtDALET6Rc&feature=channel]

Alisa: I was a little disappointed that you didn’t bring steel drums here with you. But it’s okay! It’s all in your little machine over there. But I love it; in my country it’s a big deal, we call it steel pan.

Pablo: There’s a lot of high school kids playing those and doing really cool stuff, right?

Alisa: It’s kind of a big deal. They learn them and perform these pieces during Carnival. But you blend a lot of samples of your favorite types of music into your songs with vocals. But this record ....

Pablo: Has no samples. I just wanted to try a different context for my songs and I had the budget so it felt good. I had the budget for the first time in my life. I tried to spend as much time as I could in the studio creating sounds, making my own library of drum and bass sounds. I thought it was more interesting to try to achieve that feeling I had on the other record with the new stuff recorded by myself.

Alisa: I read that you were nervous that the new record would have a cold feeling to it.

Pablo: Yeah. I wasn’t using the same techniques. We were using a lot of small guitar amps and I went to Berlin, in a really big room with really high ceilings and it was really cold as well. I think that ambience or energy was getting to the stuff that we were recording which is why, later, I went to Madrid and Barcelona to get a different vibe. I mean, cold is not a bad thing. But it wasn’t what I was looking for.

Alisa: On your website, you list a whole bunch of records that influenced Pop Negro and it’s a really good read! I wonder what influenced your decision to put all of your influences? Is that a preemptive strike before interviews so people don’t ask you what your influences are?

Pablo: It’s not really my influences songwriting-wise, but more production. It was the record’s label idea because when talking to them, they asked where those techniques were coming from and I explained to them a lot of producers they didn’t know, like Spanish producers. But I also wasn’t only influenced by Spanish, American or UK producers. They thought it was odd to just include the Spanish producers. It [offered] the bigger picture if I talked about all of the producers.  

Alisa: You list ABC’s “The Look of Love.” That’s a song I love too. A Trevor Horn production.

Pablo: Trevor Horn is the greatest. He gets the biggest sounds, larger than life.

Alisa: The sax on that song - and there’s a lot of sax on your record.

Pablo: I used to play in a band with a brass section so ….

Alisa: Was that Coconot?

Pablo: No, Orchestra Muerte. So I was excited to bring that back to my music. Coconot was the band I used to play with in Barcelona for about two or three years. We had a couple of records out, but I started to write a lot by myself so I didn’t have the time to go on with them.

Alisa: Did that hurt their feelings?

Pablo: I don’t know (laughs). It hurt everybody’s feelings because we worked a lot on the band. Maybe one day we’ll get together again. I did it because it was really hard to bring my sounds to the band. Not something super different, but it was hard to bring the samples to the records, I wanted to play more melodies; I used to play the drums and I was getting bored.

Alisa: Okay, you also list Bryan Ferry with Rhett Davies’ production. You mentioned that you learned a lot on how to produce your own vocals from Davies.

Pablo: I’m not a good singer, so that record was very inspiring. Bryan Ferry is a crooner guy and the way the vocals were produced, hidden in the mix, but they work with frequencies so that you know that they’re there and you can understand what he’s singing. So I thought, “Wow, if they do that with Bryan Ferry, then I should feel more comfortable about producing my own vocals in an unconventional way.”

Alisa: Do you feel more comfortable singing? More than on the last record?

Pablo: Well, I was singing on the last one, just really low (laughs). It’s not that I’m more comfortable, it’s just that it made more sense to have vocals in the mix with the new songs.

Alisa: Okay, Mariah Carey’s “Fantasy."

Pablo: Big record, no?

Alisa: A huge record, but you sort of walk the indie rock line?

Pablo: I’ve never been in an indie rock band! We’re doing indie rock now? That’s good to know! I love Mariah Carey but I really love Walter Afanasief, a producer who works a lot with her. He’s the George Martin of R&B. He always puts a lot of unconventional stuff in the mixes, like in a Mariah Carey ballad you’ll find raw guitars and a super big drums. Things you don’t think make sense, but make a lot of sense.

Alisa: You picked up how to process handclaps from the production of Evelyn Champagne King’s “I’m in Love.”

Pablo: Have you heard it? Yesterday, my sound engineer Brian and I were getting a coffee and that song came on the radio. Such a huge song! The drums sound so nice and the handclaps’ decay is really, really nice. It makes you feel like you want to start a party.

[video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3a9lndwJXQg]

Alisa: Your music is so dense and intense. So many layers. But this one seems more focused. The last album had more of an entrancing feel, but this one feels easier to dance to.

Pablo: The ideas for both records were really different and Alegranza was really just trying to fit in a whole bunch of stuff that I was listening to when I was younger, like Latin and Brazilian stuff, into dance music structures. So I was really excited about that. For this record I wanted to aim for stuff that could last more in time. I feel it’s not that straightforward like the last record, the other record is more bombastic kind of stuff? This new record, you have to get into it which is something I like. Still, you have hooks and songs you can dance to, sing to, but I wanted it to be a more in-depth record. You can discover new production things while you’re listening.

Alisa: Singing in Spanish adds another sonic layer, though I can’t understand the lyrics. There’s a lot of musicians who don’t speak English as their first language. but they make music in English. Was that something you thought about?

Pablo: I didn’t think about that. When I write a song, I don’t want to have to translate it or put up more barriers. Some writing processes are magic things; there’s some little tricks you can follow, but it’s always surprising. So if you put barriers on that - and language is a big one - it feels ridiculous. And it’s really ridiculous to sing in a language that you don’t think in. I can’t think in English; I’m just translating everything I’m thinking into English.

Alisa: You’re on tour. How are you being received in the US?

Pablo: The crowds here are really nice and the venues are always packed. They get into the music really fast. One thing both American and Spanish audiences like are the bass and the rhythms.

Alisa: Oh! Did you know that The Ruby Suns cover "Palmitos Park?"?

Pablo: Yes! Ryan is a good friend of ours.

Alisa: And they sing it in English which is cool for me because now I know what the song is about. Did he translate it?

Pablo: Yes - more or less its the same lyrics. It’s about being alone … and what was happening with my other band. I couldn’t do what I wanted to do with those guys at that time so I was feeling frustrated. And Barcelona … it’s a really nice city but sometimes it can be a little aggressive. I was feeling that and was singing about how a friendship could deteriorate.

[video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTJYj_uL1NQ]