One of the leading figures in contemporary Spanish folk music, Eliseo Parra has a new album titled Diez (ten) that contains a CD and a DVD with many bonus features. Diez was recorded live during the concerts that Parra offered about the end of 2008 at the Teatro Galileo in Madrid.
Both discs collect a selection of the 2008 performances, featuring Eliseo Parra with his own band as well as with former collaborators, such as multi-instrumentalist Javier Paxariño, accordionist Kepa Junkera and vocalist Carmen Paris, who are well known in world music, pop and folk circles.
The CD and DVD collect Parra’s most popular material. Some of pieces composed by Parra, such as ‘Van for the aire’. In other cases, Parra reconstructed traditional songs from various parts of Spain and gave them new life. Although he sings most of his material in Spanish (Castilian), such as ‘Bolero de Algodre’, he also celebrates other languages spoken in Spain. He uses Catalan in ‘El silenci d’estimar’ and Basque in ‘Ama Zeuriak’. The title of the album celebrates 10 years of travel with the band throughout the roads of Spain
Parra is also interested in opening a discussion about what traditional music is and how it should be made. For Eliseo Parra, folklore is popular knowledge. It is the study of wearing apparel, the building of houses, gastronomy… and of traditional music, which is “what I make,” says Parra. Folk music is not a part of a static world, standing in time, something that needs to be maintained untouched. “We cannot continue making things the way they were made before. Not only because we are different, or we have some different knowledge, but because that whole knowledge is taken out of context in this society.”
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Author: World Music Central News Room
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