Ojos de Brujo: a warm and cool concert July 21, 2004

Right from Barcelona, this radical bunch of local musicians who seem to have taken flamenco by the scruff of its sequined jacket, shaken it free of its hidebound obsessions with pedigree and purity and kicked it out onto the modern dancefloor. The group was formed in 1990 by guitarist Ramón Giménez and bassist Juanlu and evolved via multiple unhinged jam sessions involving faces from many prominent groups on the blossoming Barça scene like Macaco, Amparanoia and Los Flamencorros, into the six piece that you see today. The Brujo's first CD 'Vengue' appeared in various parts of Europe on Edel Records in 2000 and went on to stir up plenty of interest and sales in their native Spain. Festivals galore followed post haste, and in the autumn of 2001 the group decided to set up their own label, La Fábrica de Colores, and release their second CD 'Barí', an opus which demonstrated their increasingly fearless tampering with flamenco norms and, for those who understand their lyrics, a "respect for the Planet Earth and the importance of popular wisdom". As well as composing sound tracks for Spanish, Italian and Mexican movies, the group has also released two collaborative videos and produces a fanzine comic called 'Rumba Contra el Mundo' ('Rumba against The World'). There's the crux of this enticing new explosion of Catalonian creativity. Groups like Ojos de Brujo don't just make great music, they also generate all manner of other cultural artifacts, all in the cause of forward thinking and wicked DIY fun.