Ô PARADIS
Pequeñas canciones de amor
digipak cd
tourette005

SOLD OUT

Ah, another little slice of velvety smoothness from the fine lad at Tourette Records. And from Ô Paradis, no less. I’ve always been very influenced by music and there’s something about listening to his CD’s that makes it impossible to be in a bad mood. There’s just something about Demian’s voice that always has a visual impact with me. It’s the sound of a life less complicated, the breeze blowing warm from the Mediterranean Sea and sultry Spanish women. And one would expect nothing less from an album entitled “Pequeñas Canciones De Amor”, or “Little Songs of Love” for we gringos.

The album features quite a variety of instrumentation: keyboards, various percussion, accordion, acoustic guitar, lots of samples and on several tracks Demian is joined on vocals by what I’m assuming is his significant other, known only as Conny. Regardless, she has a beautiful voice and it works well with his smoky baritone pipes. Also making another appearance here after 2006’s “Las Nubes Que Mueren” is Oriol Saña on violin.

The musical styles are as varied as the instruments producing them, but I’d say they all fall somewhere in the traditional Neo-folk genre, but at times with some strange looping percussion, more than a passing nod towards more industrial sounds. If you’ve never been exposed to Ô Paradis, it’s tough to describe. I’m assuming a lot of the influences come from traditional Catalonian music as they are usually very proud of that heritage, but also straight 60’s EuroPop, flamenco and even jazzy moments. This release also includes a very original cover of Dylan’s “It Ain’t Me, Babe”.

If I had to reference other projects, Allerseelen immediately comes to mind and the man behind that group, Gerhard Petak, has also put out a couple of Ô Paradis on his own Aorta label. Spiritual Front is another band I’d compare to or maybe Novy Svet, whose Jürgen Weber wrote one of the tracks, “Como Una Nube”. And I balked when I first saw the 17 track listing, but most of the songs are short and varied enough to keep you from losing interest. The whole disc clocks in around 52 minutes. The 4 panel digipak comes with simple artwork and a great picture of the man himself and an attractive female in her underwear (Conny?). Definitely worth checking out a great disc for my (few & far between) sunny moods.
[review by plaguehaus]

more info : www.myspace.com/oparadis