Luis Clemente, February 2000

The guitar of Manolo Sanlúcar is pensive, with a silver-lined forehead. His introverted guitar works around emotion and turns schematic with nonconformist rigor. On the hinge of the century he is an intimist and a craftsman. His new CD, recorded with two guitars, voice, and percussion, is made within the "family" of Isidro Sanlúcar, Carmen Linares, and Tino di Geraldo. It is clear that he controlled the recording, and even wrote the notes to the CD. But there is a trick to the sound.

"Locura de Brisa y trino" premiered in the last Bienal de Sevilla contest. It has been eight years since his last recording, and, abandoning symphonic works, he returns to a schematic format in his arduous exploration of flamenco. With his magic wand plugged into the network of rhythms, he draws meandering paths through a matrix-scale, like a master key to the system of flamenco chord progressions.

"Any difficulty would provoke her enthusiasm," he wrote about the participation of Carmen Linares. The guitar has freed itself from the submission to the singer, and now the voice submits to her, not without certain risk. The first two tracks, a bit of soleá and taranto, last 18 minutes. Four of the remaining six are longer than five minutes. In these recordings Sanlúcar no longer plays defined palos.

Alchemy. "A la puerta Federico llama" is the title of the first track sung in a recording that was made over a year. It is as lively as the line that gives it its name: "Pero mi amor busca pura / locura de brisa y trino" (But my love searches for pure / madness of breeze and trill). The line is from "Normas" which Carmen sings sustained, afflicted, and glorious, in several palos. The recording deals with anguish and García Lorca: "His verse is my refuge and from it I am reborn each time that my anguish resurfaces," writes the guitarist in the notes to the CD. He considers himself to be a flamenco monk and Lorca to be a priest of his culture; he borrows from the verse of "Diván de Tamarit" and "Poeta en Nueva York" in his creative unrest. We hear "El poeta pide a su amor que le escriba," "Carta a doña Rosita· set to alegrías in two versions, and he uses "Gacela de amor desesperado" for a granaína.

The direct maestro of new generations such as Vicente Amigo and Juan Carlos Romero, Sanlúcar is an isolated case in the Mercury catalogue. His search for essences, at the age of 54, is the result of his day-to-day doubts and takes place on a pool of poetry with pastel-colored alchemy.

More information:

Interview with Manolo Sanlúcar, guitarist

Festival de Mont de Marsan 2002. Manolo Sanlúcar and Carmen Linares, ‘Locura de brisa y trino’. Review and photos