“The whole world wants to do folklore, there is an irritated search for the authentic”

It is time when the fusion of traditional Asturian music and the avant-garde became legitimate Court Manuala serious and experimental album created by Raül Refree. Más Hedonist was on The romeria manualwhich was worth it Premio Nacional de Músicas Actuales 2023.

Now we have a third branch of songs that we are finishing on the “Placer Trilogy” and then we sing about life, love, country and the legacy of the people who walk the road, in the Asturian language for bandera and invited stars such as Massiel, Ana Belén, Mala Rodríguez and Rossy de Palma (This is the last as host and entertainer in your short film Llagareswhere he interprets various songs from the album). That’s good advice xardiner: “P’acabar cola plaga del pulgón, lo meyor y keep the house always full of mariquitas”.

Please. What type of beauty sings to you on this record?

Response. A lot: save the beauty Asturcon y Party; on the side of love and life Xardiner; to a higher level with Tarta Relena en El panuelín; to beauty such as Burbuja or refuge en Happy worldand to the bitter don of beauty BLAZ.

P. Death is very present, but in a solemn, sometimes pleasant way. Is this how we imagine the end of life?

R. I wish I could, like Albert Pla, take my differing views. En An ideal death I put a figure on paper The ones with the eyes and looked at the small onesIrene Solà, a lady who anxiously awaits death because she believes it will be a wonderful moment, an explosion of exultation, an eternal ecstasy.

P. Have fun wherever you see it Let’s dancea singer who sings with Ana Belén.

R. Yes, I sing them all beauty envejecer accompanied. That’s the best thing you can do in lifeand let’s look here at people who are qued and who are happy.

P. Además de esas colaboraciones con Ana Belén o Massiel, menciona en Una muerte ideal a Nino Bravo, a Lina Morgan, a Concha Velasco, a Rocío Jurado… ¿Quería reivindicar a estos mitos de la cultura popular española?

R. Para mí son referentes de la belleza, aunque sea de otra época, de ese mundo glamuroso y decadente de Juan Gabriel, Dalida, Selena… Me parece uno de los picos de la belleza en la cultura popular. Los reverencio porque nos enseñaron mucho.

P. He collaborates again with Eduardo Cabra on the production of the album. What makes a Puerto Rican producing Asturian folk musician?

R. I’m telling you, but we like it very much from the first moment. Likewise, Puerto Rico and Asturias have certain similarities: their insular character (before the departure of the AVE to Asturias) and their colonial conditions: our local talent is issued from the suburbs to the centers.

P. El disco tiene sabor local, pero producción internacional: grabado entre Puerto Rico y Madrid, mezclado en París y masterizado en Buenos Aires. Paradojas de la globalización…

R. Se iba a mezclar en Nueva York, pero me denegaron la ESTA [la autorización de viaje] to enter the United States Don’t give me any explanations, so we can look forward to Fab Dupont, the mix engineer, in Paris. I can also go to Puerto Rico for the same reason. I lost two trips with purchased accounts.

P. Why do you think she was so successful a few years ago that she went back to her roots and delved into tradition and folklore with a contemporary perspective?

R. Now the whole world wants folklore. What we expect from all the people who have been doing this for 8 or 10 years was to infuse the music with a stronger, more personal and more indigenous identity.. This is undoubtedly achieved. And I believe the public cares because now they have a heightened desire for authenticity that has been absorbed: the authentic bar, ¡pum!, is full of modernity. It happens a lot in big cities that have lost their identity.

Life in the world

P. He lives in Vegarrionda, a diminutive aldea in the Piloña concept. How is it day to day? I imagine them in the ratos folding and the ratos taking care of the huerto.

R. As it is, I don’t have fixed opening hours. However, it is certain that I am not at home much because I stay there freeos. I am in the cultural association La Benéfica de Piloña and now we will open the bar La Maléfica. When I see a cart, I pull it. I like it very much.

P. Desde La Benéfica culturally revitalized the area. what happened there

R. We have been with the project for five years. We organize popular festivals such as Amagüestu, which is a chestnut festival; el Antroxu, the traditional Asturian carnival; We also celebrated the Una Señora Fiesta festival, whose new years we celebrated, and a folklore event. We also have a community radio, where we implement cultural media projects, we bring contemporary artists to schools to teach, and our space is also used to organize dance and theater courses…

P. Antes las personas con una identidad fuera de la norma huían de los pueblos a las ciudades, donde podían ser anónimos y más libres. ¿Usted vivió eso?

R. Yo me crie en Oviedo, pero los fines de semana y vacaciones nos íbamos al pueblo de mi abuela, Rodiezmo, y me pasaba al revés: donde nadie se metía conmigo era en el pueblo, así que estaba encantado. No digo que no le pasara a otros, pero a mí me quería mucho la gente y nadie se metía conmigo.

P. Al volver a vivir en un pueblo pequeño, ¿cómo le recibió la gente mayor, que es más propensa a tener una mentalidad más cerrada?

R. Yo creo que tienen la cabeza más cerrada los jóvenes que los mayores, por desgracia. A los viejos les da un poco igual todo, son más relajados. No me gusta generalizar, pero tienen otra forma de tomarse la vida con la que yo conecto más.

P. En su emotiva canción Rambalín, de su disco Manual de cortejo, rendía homenaje a Rambal, el transformista asesinado en Gijón en 1976, símbolo de la comunidad LGBTIQ+. ¿Cuánto ha cambiado España desde aquellos crímenes horribles contra homosexuales hasta convertirse en un país puntero en libertad sexual y de género?

R. Cambió muchísimo porque los armarios se abrieron y de allí salieron como conejos de una madriguera [risas]. And he says: ¡Mother, all the people who before lived lives that were not hers! It is undeniable the enormous and rare progress he has made, however, you continue to log in daily. Another day is a horror story in León for a trans woman and they are mindful of the hate speech we have had recently.

Language en peligro

P. Have you always had a close relationship with traditional Asturian music?

R. I loved it as a kid. Tocaba la gaita y era muy asturianista. I became a bit aware of it when I lived and studied in Barcelona, ​​but when I discovered the traditional pandereta and the melody, I connected a lot.

P. In the song mentioned to José González El Presilegend of the Asturian melody, and has a version of the song that is usually sung. What do you think will be the views on the music?

R. I think I would enjoy it because it was very open musically. In an interview with RNE I said: “I am with an Asturian magazine where dance, music, singing and Asturian humor will rise to the heights of any spectacle in the world”. It was a pleasure to do it.

P. On this record he sings more in Asturian than ever before. How do you see the situation in your language?

R. He is completely en peligro. Asturian is, along with Aragonese, one of the Spanish languages ​​most at risk of extinction. We’ve been waiting 40 years for it to be official, but we’re not going to get married, and I still don’t believe we’ll save our language just by doing it. What we need is a lot of cultural production in Asturias. As much as possible, better and in the highest possible quality.