Triquell: “The people who accompany me applaud my crazy ideas.”
The law of gravity doesn't seem to work the same way for Triquell, whose attraction to the center where everything orbits has been more than dubious since he chose to distance himself from euphoric universes to take his own flight. He did so with his first album, Entre Fluids , a path toward his own confines that he continued two years later with Paco Deluxe , where sonic polysemy becomes the standard-bearer of a complex album, with dense productions and genres that range from country to drum & bass without losing the artist's personal touch.
Nothing is straight in the trajectory of the celestial body on which Francesc Fuentes stands, starting with the title, a reference to the "Pacos," a term he associates with his "earthly self," his ancestors, "but also with Paca, my best friend. I'm surrounded by Pacos. There was a voice that called for a global, accessible, and helpful title, but there was also another niche voice, more ironic and emo, that appealed to my Paco." This is also the origin of Deluxe, a term used by the industry to sell expanded editions of albums that the artist from Vallès uses to mock terms like extra , premium , plus , or max that flood the current market.
Read also Rocío Márquez launches the new era of the Vic Live Music Market with renewed management Sergio Lozano
The cover, crafted in dark, blurred reds by mixing multiple layers and color washes, is a reflection of the themes concocted in Centelles, in a studio where the band and the usual suspects of the artist could move freely. "I feel more represented by this cover than by the typical Camilo Sesto-style singer-songwriter portrait," he explains, comparing it to the production of the album, where beyond the instrumental arrangements, he wanted to emphasize the production: "In the studio, we tried to saturate, giving a more analog feel, a texture that goes hand in hand with the cover."
Triquell is reluctant to define Paco Deluxe as a dark album, “but it tends towards A minor, post punk, shoegaze, emo”, a cocktail inspired by the mix by Tchad Blake (Tom Waits, Sheryl Crow, Peter Gabriel) where he highlights the contribution of Arnau Grabulosa on the omnipresent synthesizers, “he is someone with criteria, he has given it a special color”. Maria Jaume has also added their own plots in No estic per mi , perhaps the most pop track on the album, as well as Meritxell Nedderman in the vaporous Paradigma or Gerard Quintana in Basura .
The voice of Sopa de Cabra thus returns to the collaboration on Ànima , the Empordà band's latest album, sealing a connection that has made him a key figure for Triquell. "In fact, he saved me from the pit a bit. He's someone I love very much. He has his head in the clouds, just like me, and has people around him who know how to ground him." He's referring to Josep Thió, who plays a similar role to some of Cesc Fuentes' colleagues: "They bring order and execution to a mind that sometimes fails to ground ideas."
Triquell.
Gorka Urresola / OwnThese ideas are what lead to surprising mixes like "Loli County Club ," inspired by the video game "Red Dead Redemption, " where the musician crafts a third-person narrative about a character from another era. "It's a piece that moves from something very Leonard Cohen, with an acoustic guitar that sends you off to the West; suddenly it's down-tempo rock, then the bridge is pure country, and from there to a drop that's half dubstep, half metal, ending with a very dirty techno bass drum on quarter notes." Anyone want more? "It's perfect," Triquell concludes, surprised, "for me, it's like the fun of making music."
Absolute freedom also oozes from Ghabbo 's urgent electronic R&B, whose origins are as surreal as the artist's babble into the microphone, although the result is far more complex. "Each track has an aesthetic that appeals to melancholy, satire, or emotional openness; the tone is never the same, and that takes time," he comments, justifying the album's lengthy process. "If you concentrate the creation in a week, you might end up with something more aesthetically coherent, but it won't have the variety that allows you to spend a year and a half collecting references."
“Each song appeals to melancholy, satire, or emotional openness; there's never the same tone.”Throughout this time, and unlike the previous album, Triquell has centralized decisions, although it is once again a collective effort. “The assembly has limitations, it slows down processes, and it's not entirely clear who's taking the bull by the horns,” he explains. “If you have a microclimate with enough respect and communication to work vertically without authority gaps, things work well. That's something that time and entrepreneurship teach you.”
Learning looms over every song on the album, 13 tracks laid out on two sides like a vinyl record. “You have to survive, you have to market your music, but I don't want to commoditize it or go into an inaccessible niche. I want to find balance,” he points out, lamenting that today “you can't find a middle ground between pop and alternative; if you stick between the two, there's no audience that knows how to find their place.” In any case, it's a dilemma he prefers to avoid because facing it could “sabotage your project.”
In this sense, he throws a helping hand to his record label, Halley Records, which he extends to those around him for supporting his ideas: "There's a myth that when an artist signs with a record label, they become corporatized and stop making art in a genuine way, but the people who accompany me there, like at home, or my friends, applaud my crazy ideas because they see me happy doing them." Those who want to can see him at the next Mercat de Música Viva, among other concerts like the one he'll be holding at the Apolo venue on May 8th, three years after his first performance at the legendary venue.
lavanguardia
