Napoleonic & ECW wargaming, with a load of old Hooptedoodle on this & that


Friday 13 August 2021

Hooptedoodle #403 - Radio Tarifa

 This morning I have a lot to do, so I was having a look through my CDs to find some invigorating music to get me going. Ah! - Radio Tarifa - just the job... 


I was a big fan of these guys - still am, I guess, though they no longer exist. I am always a little nervous of World Music as a heading - so much of it can be meaningless if you weren't brought up in the culture and the musical traditions of the country you are listening to, though it's often very refreshing, and sometimes eerily familiar.


Radio Tarifa
were something of an enigma - founded by two Spanish students of medieval music and North African music, they teamed up with a Flamenco singer, and became very successful in 1993. The band is named after a fictitious radio station they dreamed up, in Southern Spain, and the music, they reckoned, is the sort of stuff you would pick up late at night on such a station. The emphasis is Mediterranean, rather than Spanish, so there's all sorts in there - Flamenco, Jewish, Algerian and Moroccan music, and what I would regard almost as "Turkish Wedding" music, a rich mixture - always energetic, always brilliantly performed. They specialised in exotic and ancient instruments, and, though much of the material was traditional, they wrote a lot themselves, "in the style of" this multi-cultural genre they had created. I have seen a couple of live shows on video, and was confused to see that the band, on tour, was enormous - though nominally a 3-piece, they had many guest players. A real riot.

Their aim was to explore the music of the Mediterranean area as it was before the current nations were so well defined - when the Moors were still in Spain - maybe 15th Century is some kind of watershed; though this sounds a bit academic, the music is often festive and exciting. Heartily recommended by me, for what that is worth. The band took an extended break in 2006, which became permanent, alas, when the main singer died in 2012.

The track in the video clip is from, I think, their 3rd album, Cruzando el Rio, which dates from 2001. Of course, you may find it irritating, but it's great music for washing the recycling, I can tell you!

10 comments:

  1. Reminiscent of Three Mustaphas Three.....
    Neil

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    1. Don't know them - will have a search and a listen :)

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    2. I had a listen - they are good fun, but rather closer to the Bonzo Dog Band, maybe!

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  2. Ha!…
    I always suspect you of having good taste 😁
    I have the first three albums… I may have to have a listen… it’s been a while.

    Tarifa is a real place…it’s the closest part of Spain to Morocco.

    All the best. Aly

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    1. Good man Aly. I know about Tarifa, it was just the phantom radio station that was pretend-be. It's amazing to hear all these weird Arab stringed instruments, and crumhorns and all that.

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  3. Agreed that sometimes music from 'elsewhere' falls flat due to one's own cultural/societal differences. But sometimes, music from another culture just nails it. I was listening (again) to the Finnish singer Maarko Haavisto the other day, and his maudlin brand of surf rock, for want of a better descriptor, somehow speaks to me although I understand nothing beyond the world weary tone. Wonderful stuff!

    Best Regards,

    Stokes

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    1. Agreed - absolutely. The scary thing to me, which definitely happens sometimes, is when I hear a piece of traditional music from, let us say, Algeria, and I am aware that I know it from long ago...

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  4. Will have to check them out. And another thumbs up for 3 Mustaphas 3... a band I hadn't thought of for years but used to really like.

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  5. I'm also a Radio Tarifa fan, although I only have two of their albums. I spent some time in Tarifa in the late 1980s.

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  6. Very interesting and enjoyable if in the right mood. Of course youtube will have taken notice and will be trying to feed me more music that it thinks might be of interest. Exploring the new there can be dangerous but sometimes rewarding.

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