A record which leaves no doubt about Vicente Amigo’s dimension as soloist, and a key work in the post-Paco de Lucía era of flamenco guitar. Just when everyone thought that the genius from Algeciras had taken flamenco guitar to its outermost limits and there was nowhere else to go, Vicente Amigo brought together the lyricism of his maestro Manolo Sanlúcar and the rhythmic rage of his friend Paco to record what is today a classic of guitar-playing and of modern flamenco.

"Limón de Nata" is a commercial but quality rumba with harmonies sweetened by major sevenths in the style of Sade or Sting, a cool trumpet in the style of Miles Davis, and obsessive repetition of the chorus which is a constant in Vicente’s new style: he doesn’t overload the pieces with ideas, but rather repeatedly develops an easy to memorize melody, with a sound that is warm at the same time as percussive. "El Mandaíto" is an experimental bulería in modal C# [do#], a true exercise in virtuosity built around a flamenco dynamic, caressing and breaking the guitar in the blink of an eye, all in compás and with aire. The minera "Ventanas al Alma" belongs to the aesthetic world of Paco de Lucía’s "Callejón del Muro", but Vicente here borrows several harmonies from Pat Metheny’s contemporary jazz guitar, reducing the roughness of the minero sounds to achieve a difficult equilibrium between the old echoes of Levante and a certain modern projection of this concert form. The Huelva rhythm has Vicente’s unmistakeable mark which we were already able to progressively appreciate in his work with El Pele, Luis de Córdoba or Camarón, with a lovely pleasant fandango interpreted by Duquende.

The intent of the piece titled "Querido Pat" is to dialogue between flamenco artists who have flirted with jazz and have become fascinated by its harmonies, as well as to improvise to bulerías. When the guitarists are named Paco de Lucía and Vicente Amigo the result could not help but be a memorable bulería where both design a clean approach to what improvisation can be in flamenco. The rhythmic ambiguity is part of flamenco: amalgamated compases where three-part time alternates with binary, combinations of accents which appear to the uninitiated as staggered...the compás, the order amidst disorder, is lovingly joined to one’s perception of flamenco.

There is one exuberant style which offers ample proof of this. The tanguillo de Cádiz recently dusted-off and updated by Paco de Lucía and Camarón, later by Gerardo Núñez, Potito, Jorge Pardo, Chano Domínguez, etc... In "De Blanco y Oro" which Vicente dedicates to Juan Serrano, the guitarist from his hometown of Córdoba, he offers his version of tanguillo with an effective balance between flamenco, Arabic, and rock styles where once again he demonstrates his mastery of the flamenco dynamic. The zapateado, a concert piece full of arpeggios on a composed measure, allows the soloist to shine. Vicente shines not only in his powerful arpeggios, but also in his capacity to fuse elements from different musical sources. After an exotic Sephardic introduction with the voice of Raquel Ruiz, the percussive base allows the musician to combine zapateado with the palmas accompaniment of Gospel Songs, later speeding it up and finishing off with a flamencoey samba. Paco de Lucía already worked through the rhythmic challenge of making samba, so highly-regarded by Hispanic jazz musicians like Chick Corea or Camilo, sound flamenco in "Playa del Carmen" (Siroco, 1987). Now we’ve got it with Vicente Amigo in another flamenco form with an Atlantic influence, the zapateado.

A classic rondeña, that is to say, inspired by the first ones recorded by Paco de Lucía, with a wink to Riqueni, is the last ‘imagined experience’ of our friend Vicente. Experiences which put you off upon first listening, just as Paco de Lucía’s "Solo Quiero Caminar" did in its day, but which time is settling into place: one of the fundamental works of modern flamenco guitar, a limitless source for true flamenco from which he has the artistic capacity to constantly re-invent himself based on what he has lived and imagined.