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So ‘Limón’ is a kind of catalog to introduce the solo projects that are to come?

I don't want it to be an album of joint ventures. ‘Limón’ is an album of music, but since I don't play an instrument, I call up my friends so they can come and play the material. But I think the album has a worth of its own. There are thirty musicians, but actually the backbone of the album is a quartet... with a whole lot of little surprises. Everything has a certain sound and a certain underlying concept. And from now on we’re going to release albums: one by Niño Josele, another with Calamaro, another by a new artist called La Negra that I'm going to launch. She sings songs with a flamenco air, it's very original. The idea is also to introduce some new faces. And later we'll do the odd offbeat experiment mixing two strange cultures. The aim over the coming season is to release four or five albums. And it's like a collection, they'll all be numbered. They're more like snippets of artists, we aren't going to sign up artists with long-term contracts or with an obligation to record three albums - it'll be a collection of independent projects, carefully-produced and individually-numbered.

Javier Limón at 'Casa Limón' studios (Photo: Daniel Muñoz)

Is there any place you like to be apart from in the studio?

There's the odd place... where I don't like to be. (He laughs).

If the walls of Casa Limón had ears...

The orgies...

Musical orgies, right?

Yeah, of course, of course. (He laughs). The truth is that you can relax in this studio, it's like being at home. I try to hide the equipment from view as much as possible. I have a lot of machines hidden away and those other ones that are left over I'm going to hide also. My idea is for all the machines and equipment to be out of sight, for this to be like a house where you can feel relaxed, play... that serves as a kind of ideal for the musicians who come here. If Eliane Elías or whoever comes, they just arrive here and record their stuff. A lot of albums were recorded like that. ‘Los Piratas del Flamenco’, for example. I told Jerry I had the studio, and asked him how many days I should set aside to record the album. And he replied, “Two, just in case.” I'd just come from making the Morente album, two years in the studio. And in the end it took one day, of course.

I think the difference between that jazz Jerry does and flamenco is that in jazz they're always fishing around in the harmony and in the melody, and they suddenly come across four notes that sound beautiful. All that time searching is justified by that moment of great beauty. And in flamenco it always has to be maximum beauty. Flamenco is very beautiful, it’s a treasure, but a lot of work goes into it... You do a bulería and in the fourth verse the cantaor wanders a little off-key, and the bulería's a write-off. And in jazz it's the other way round, everything is out of key but there's one moment... and then it's a great tune. It's a positive attitude, seeing the beauty of the detail. And flamenco sometimes suffers in that aspect. I think we'll see a return to not making such a big deal of things. My idol at the moment is Capullo de Jerez, who Paco de Lucía got me into. He recommended I listen to him closely. And it's true that he has a terrific concept, he sings with such liberty... And the truth is Paco is the real flamenco producer. The thing is that since he's the best guitarist, the best musician in this country, the best...

You can't hang any more titles around his neck...

I mean he's also the really good flamenco producer: the one who invented the cajón, coros of backing vocalists, structures, recording track-by-track, click-boxes, overdubs... He’s the one who went into a studio and said OK, now we have to define studio flamenco from scratch, because we aren't going to be stupid enough to get in there, do what we do at the tablao and put it on an album. He's the best. Paco has set standards for tuning, for rhythm, for structure, for harmony, for guitar... and I understand that people don't have time to put in so many hours. Like he does if he can... he'll take as long as he needs until it's tight as can be. And it isn't just time, it's time and the standards he sets. You can't spend five years on an album and the album turns out a disaster. I've seen Paco, for example, spend two or three hours without a break on one line of a song until it came out right, and later I've seen him do a tune from start to finish in one go and give it his seal of approval. I mean, there is a guy who has his standards set as clear as crystal. If it comes out in one go, then fine, but if you have to take three days, then three days it is. But he doesn't stop until it starts to meet the right standards.

You favor combinations and fusion, but do you think that flamenco can continue to move forward within itself without looking to other musical styles?

	"Flamenco artists making flamenco music are up to the standards of any kind of music"

I think flamenco is amazingly young because it's just two centuries old at the most. And flamenco is a mix of Arabian, Jewish and Christian religious music, that, at a certain point in history combined and the first shoots began to appear. There's music in gnawa that is like flamenco. I think to cling on to the four or five cantes by Manuel Torre or Antonio Chacón from the turn of the century and to say that they're the commandments is idiotic. I think the evolution of flamenco is in full swing, with a language that has to be enriched. What is certainly true is that to do fusion properly you have to know your stuff. You can learn that stuff listening to albums. When I was with Juan Valderrama, I spent hours listening to tarantas and tarantas and more tarantas of his to get up to scratch. And with Morente it was the same, I stuck to him like a limpet. All of a sudden, he'd do the Soleá de... Santa María. Who knows what that is? Nobody. And Pepe el de la Matrona taught him, it isn't documented anywhere. That makes its impression on you. I think flamenco will be saved if young people get into vintage cante, If not it could run the risk of thinning out. I think it's fundamental to keep listening to Tomás Pavón and all those people, fundamental.

And if we look ahead, don't you think that what we still call 'nuevo flamenco' lags behind modern music?

I think in Spain we're still just waking up in almost all the musical styles. Hip-hop is in its infancy, rock too compared to what's coming out of Bristol, and jazz is the same. Everything is in its infancy. But yeah I think flamenco artists making flamenco music are up to the standards of any kind of music. Rock in Spain is like it is because it isn't our culture. How many fourteen-year-old kids are there who play the electric guitar well? There's none. And in the U.S. you do a turn at a high school and out come seventeen kids that'll eat you for breakfast. It's their culture. Didn't you ever hear how beautiful Phil Collins sounds when he sings in English and how cheesy he sounds when he sings in Spanish? It sounds ridiculous. The language also has a lot to do with it. I love Sting, but...

And in your role as a lyricist, how do you work?

My best lyrics came out when I was in a hurry - a quick coffee, into the studio and full speed ahead. ‘Hubo un lugar’, for example, or ‘El concierto de Aranjuez’ on the DVD by Bebo and Cigala, which is the only one that the estate of Joaquín Rodrigo allowed. And I think the most beautiful flamenco poetry that was ever written is in Japanese ‘Haikus’.

Do you aim for the lyrics to be more about musicality than about content?

No, no, no. I always aim for my lyrics to have content. There are a lot of times that I write the lyrics beforehand. And I realized one of the interesting approaches to enriching flamenco composition is to put in poetry that isn't in octosyllabic or hendecasyllabic verses, so long as it's not prose or nonmetrical. That forces you to search for new and different rhythmical and melodical resources. All traditional flamenco is in tercets, quartets or quintets with classical rhyme. That's why I like Haiku, because when it's another meter you're forced to slip the lyrics in differently and create new lines. That's why Morente is so creative as a composer, because when he takes poems like ‘Poet in New York’ that are nonmetrical, he has to fit the lyrics around the tune in a new way. He's very intelligent.

As a producer, what use do you make of machines?

I think ProTools and all that stuff is another tool that you have to know how to use. The ideal situation is where you don't notice the use of machines and the final recording is as similar to the actual moment as can be achieved in an enclosed space. Later I guess there are electronic bits and pieces that would be handy to know about. Right now I'm doing a little hip-hop, I also like that. But that's another story. Now we're putting filters on the cajones in some cases. For example, on the soleá by Paco de Lucía, a part of the percussion is a plastic bag going “sssh” and mixed with filters it sounds good. And it's Paco de Lucía... and a trash bag. Well, not trash, just a plastic bag...

It doesn't sound right to put the words ‘Paco’ and ‘trash’ in the same sentence...

No way - never! (He laughs).

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