Ketama accompanies their new album 'Dame la mano' with a DVD of a 'fiesta flamenca' featuring the Habichuela family

The first 50.000 copies are available in two special formats: LP and CD-booklet

Flamenco-world.com

You can't foresake your own roots... no matter how much you dabble in fusion. Ketama, result of the musical marriage between the Habichuela and Sordera families, is well aware of that fact. And just like they did on 'De akí a Ketama', they've gone back to using a family 'fiesta', in true flamenco style, as an epilogue to their new album 'Dame la mano' (Give me your hand). What's new about this offering is that you not only hear the party going on, but you can watch it, on a DVD released with the disc on 13th May 2002. And the Madrileños' twelfth release holds even more surprises in store. The first 50.000 copies are issued in two peculiar formats: an emulation of a good old vinyl record for the first 35.000, and a CD-booklet for the following 15.000.

Ketama and Juan Verdú (Photo Daniel Muñoz)

Juan, Antonio and José Miguel Carmona fall back on their regular recurring theme in this new "bunch of songs" under the name of 'Dame la mano'. And this leitmotiv is none other than that "The times have changed me", to paraphrase the message from the fourth album. That's why Ketama "doesn't respect musical frontiers" as Fernando Íñiguez puts it - "in one of their first recordings, the visionary and curious 'Songhai', they experimented with African music, and now they're playing tentatively with hip hop and house beats".

The disc, composed almost entirely by the trio, contains "a tango sung as a Christmas Carol - the title track", ballads like 'Parar el tiempo' (Stop time!) or 'Como las mareas' (Like the tides), with lyrics by Jorge Drexler; a daring 'Parece mentira' (It sounds unbelievable), over a house-flavoured backing track; rhythmical pieces like 'Muévete' (Move!); and a taste of traditional flamenco on 'Kamino del monte' (mountain path), tangos that the Habichuela family used to sing back home in their birthplace Granada.

The DVD 'fiesta' starring the family goes under the title 'La Academia de los Habichuela'. They confirm that they haven't used any tricks, it was all impromptu, and it was filmed in a single take and just edited a little (since the party at the studios - Estudios Sintonía in Madrid - went on for over five hours). At the gathering there are some familiar faces, members of the Habichuela clan (Juan and Pepe Habichuela, their brothers, their uncle 'el tío Miguel', their aunt 'la tía Concha', Antonia la Pescaílla, the Chamorro sisters...) mixing with the Ketama trio and their family, José Soto Sorderita former member and one of the founders of the group, Niña Pastori, Chaboli, Rosario Flores...

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