El Guincho

Dublin is experiencing a little uncharacteristic sunshine (if not heat) in the last few days, and spirits are high. So it is the perfect time to talk about El Guincho, even if we are not the first to do so. If ever there was music to help the imagination stretch a little extra light into a beach party of the mind, Guincho’s album Alegranza is it.

According to my handy pocket Catalan-English dictionary, guincho (m) means “black-headed gull; scream, shriek; squeal, screech”, but I think it’s fair to say that the first animal that he brings to mind is the Panda Bear. The widely-levelled (and easily justified) charge that El Guincho is basically just a Spanish Noah Lennox is difficult to escape. Their sampling styles and even their samples are very similar, to the extent that you could guess Guincho bought his SP-303 with the intention of becoming the Spanish Noah Lennox.

What makes El Guincho worthwhile by himself (apart from the fact that Panda Bear probably won’t follow up Person Pitch for a long time) is that he deviates from the straight rhythm. He is a Mediterranean soul, after all, and vaguely Latin beats pervade the best songs on the album. Kalise, especially, is syncopated enough to make dancing not only forgivable but irrepressible. Check it out a load of tracks on MySpace.

The Guinch comes to town for Antics at Crawdaddy on the 26th March. €5 in, no excuses.