(Baja/Elite)
Herald rating: * *
Review: Graham Reid
Subtitled "the best of new flamenco" and with the helpful pointer "file under New Age," this 12-tune collection naturally includes one track by Ottmar Liebert, the founder of the nouveau flamenco movement, but thereafter favours Ottmar acolytes and others who saw the gap in the market between blood-boiling flamenco and the fairly vacuous guitar music which came out of the New Age Windham Hill label and its copyists.
Liebert's signature tune, Barcelona Nights, has the virtue of being distinctive and memorable (not a claim you'd make for a couple of tracks here), although you feel some of the artists have a nerve claiming their melodies as original compositions.
There's something about this musical style which renders it all fairly indistinguishable.
Maybe the clue is in the titles of the albums these tracks are taken from: Isla del Sola, Gypsy Fusion, Gypsy Renaissance, Cafe Ole, Salsa Flamenca ...
No cliche left unturned then.
<i>Various:</i> Guitar Greats
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