For more than one hour you’ll need to listen to this album several times. I don’t know if it is worth that much attention, but it is quite good. Pedro Soler was a famous French flamenco musician born in Narbonne 1938. Pedro was discovered at an early age by the Spanish flamenco artist Jacinto Almadén, with whom he travelled for as long as he lived. He was actually called Pierre Alfred Genard, but how Spanish does that sound to you? Pedro died two months ago, in France.
The titles of the songs represent styles of the flamenco. For instance, the Seguiriya is a dramatic, serious style. It is usually played in the Phrygian A key (A – B♭ – C – D – E – F – G – A for you scale lovers) on a complicated twelve beat rhythm. Subjects can be imprisonment or some loved one’s death. It is almost exclusively sung by Spanish gypsies. When I hear it, I sometimes think they are singing about something very mundane (oh… where are my car keys… Oh where are they now) in a super dramatic way.