Sr. Chinarro
El porquè de mis peinados

Reuniting with you DeBaser friends after some time, I would like to carve out a corner of self-indulgence to say that what follows is the first review in Italian about this artist, whom I hope can be known in Italy as he deserves: the Sevillian Antonio Luque, who has been active under the pseudonym Señor Chinarro since the early nineties.

A cult name in the Iberian alternative scene, over the course of his albums he has, despite the not overly accessible nature of his proposals, gained one of the largest and most devoted followings in the Spanish Indie Pop niche.

An elusive, brilliant yet deliberately never ostentatious character, the most apparent stylistic trait of his records is the refined syncretism between the acoustic guitar with a distinctly Hispanic background (without, however, overly obvious nods to flamenco) with influences as disparate as Joy Division, Byrds, Paolo Conte, the Cure.

It might seem like a chaotic mélange, and perhaps it partly is, but Chinarro's strength is filtering every original model through his own personality, which fades to become a distant and vague echo. As Julian Cope would say, he could play another's song note for note, making it still irrevocably his own one hundred percent.

The hermeticism of the lyrics, dark and fascinating, humorous and surreal, is the true unifying trait in otherwise colorful and changing production.

"El Porquè De Mis Peinados", from 1997, is one of the most artistically successful records, judged by many among the best 100 ever recorded in Spain.

It belongs to the most hermetic and magical phase of the Andalusian musician, who explores themes such as memory, adolescence, sex, nostalgia, and frustration, distorting them through the mirror of his own imagination, in a process not dissimilar from early Syd Barrett.

The first track "A La Luz De Dos Velas" strikes with its fine light/shadow opposition: on a regular percussion rhythm, an apparently sunny and Mediterranean music gradually becomes shadowy as Chinarro leads us through the "alleys of the city" of the lyrics.

"Tu Casa O La Mìa", also predominantly acoustic, is one of the darkest songs. Here Luque delves into the past of a meeting with a girl: the frustrated impossibility of remembering and conveying past thoughts emerges through the repeated line "no tienes ni idea del viento que soplaba".

With "Diario De Pitagoras", a track of great charm, the deliberately slightly approximate and impressionistic guitar, the accordion giving a gypsy flavor, and above all the absorbed singing, create a tense atmosphere that dissolves in the chorus, light and sung with a strangely amused air.

If "Ouija", supported by more extroverted musicality, shifts the narrative towards the school environment, still distorted and internalized with surreal hues, the subsequent "Quiromatico" is the most representative track of this phase of Chinarro's career.

Opened by a dry and tense guitar, Antonio Luque's warm and evocative voice takes us to an uncertain place, spectral like the female choirs repeating the title, in a sublime unease that fondles rather than discomforts us, and which soon develops in the song into a true mantra.

After the surprising "Carretera Y Manta", which strikes for its musical acidity and cynicism (why do these strange characters laugh in our ears?), the album finds another focal point in "El Libro Gordo de Peut-être", and from this "big book of might-be" literally anything comes out: drunk professors playing bingo, birds multiplying, in a succession of colorful flashes summarizing the album's content, albeit in a more relaxed and floral musicality.

In essence, an extremely difficult album to sketch and frame, magnetic but challenging on the first listens, indie pop in its communicativeness but often of an intangible refinement, dark in its continuous and enigmatic losing itself in word battles, slight flamenco hints, in its dusty dreaminess.

A minimal knowledge of the Spanish language will open up a world of changing meanings, swimming backstroke in the subconscious, heart-wrenching nostalgia and sudden illuminations, searching for a subtle and perhaps nonexistent sense, which escapes like a butterfly out of your net, sometimes higher, sometimes lower, but always ungraspable.