Phil Manzanera
Vozero

While Bryan Ferry, his captain in Roxy Music, dabbles in old school songs, dangerously bordering on swooning oleography (beware, a swing album would be intolerable: think of Paul Anka's latest rubbish on the subject), Phil Manzanera churns out records one after the other. In just over three years, he produces a sort of Cuban trilogy of absolute level: Vozero, 6PM and, in a month, 50 Minutes Later, all on Expression Record.
Manzanera is English by birth but Cuban by adoption; this certainly has facilitated the Anglo-Hispanic pop fusion that seems to flow from his heart with no effort at all.

Let's focus now on Vozero, which is not exactly a cheerful Cuban pop album: quite the opposite. It's a cultured operation that mixes auteur pop, sickly night club jazz, Hispanic guitar-driven song (unsurprisingly featuring Enrique Bunbury from the loathed Heroes Del Silencio), the cerebral anti-pop aided by the guiding spirit, Mr. Robert Wyatt, even managing to touch upon existential ambient scenes. Simplifying the matter, this record is splendid.
You feel an air of - how to say? - heartfelt balance, as if Manzanera is summing up his long career as a guitarist and composer. The traces of his time with Roxy Music are increasingly blurred, in favor of an expressive versatility that produces masterpieces like "Tropical", a piece suitable for any kind of suffering one wishes to celebrate, featuring an almost unreal double bass (the prodigious Yaron Stavi, a musician in the klezmer jazz sphere) and Manzanera's whispered voice.
Besides Wyatt, Bunbury, and Stavi, there's a formidable lineup of session musicians: Chucho Merchan (first double bass of Everything But The Girl), Nigel Butler, Andy Mackay (another ex-Roxy)... In conclusion, Manzanera is one of the few over 50 who have improved and challenged themselves, abandoning the stereotypes of the beginnings.
Note: the second edition of the CD, recently reissued and distributed in Italy by IRD, contains additional tracks and mastering of great quality.