Jorge Drexler, a great album and a new world tour that starts on six dates with Gran Rex

Thirty years after his first album, Jorge Drexler seems to remain intact with his enthusiasm, his ability to surprise and his freshness when composing. Quite a rarity when you have a trade so practiced and polished for years and years. Shape now ink and timea dazzling task generated in the long months of pandemic and incarceration.

One of the first impressions left by the album was that Drexler seemed to ignore having a mother concept idea, and this time he allowed himself to be taken down the path marked by the songs, or perhaps the limitations that imposed by the quarantine.

Always attentive to the exchange of ideas and reflections, the musician chews on the concept and explains: “Yes, it’s a possible stance and a very sharp understanding. I think this is my album with the most chaotic process, even that’s to the point that there’s no concept. I’ve always tried to have a concept in the records that come later and I realize it doesn’t matter “.

-Did the concept come to you before, or when giving reports and describing albums?

-In many instances, the concept is a cane or a cause. There’s more to talk about when you present the album than the album itself. There is no production plan here. What there was was a massive loss of north and a drift in different directions. In fact, the record will be called blind stickswhich is something uncontrollable and without conceptualization, simple grasping.

-At what point did you feel the pieces fit and you already had the album?

-Now I say half anecdotally that making the album took me two years and two weeks, because it was two years of rotation, thinking I wasn’t ready for it yet, and then two weeks where everything is compiled. Even the most unique element came in unintentionally and became decisive, like the orchestra, because one day I called Fernando Velázquez to ask him for an arrangement, and the next day he told me that the Madrid Orchestra had stopped working. and had three days off. .

-Suddenly you had an orchestra at your disposal.

-Yes! “Let’s make the record with an orchestra!” I told him. One day he brought me the song arrangement the master plan and I realized it was the explosion of colors that I didn’t realize I needed. I came from making an album with only guitars (ice lifebuoy), something that would have been ideal for pandemic, but he didn’t want to repeat the same joke.

-You anticipate the lack of options and the force limits.

-Of course. And now the idea of ​​scarcity doesn’t work for me, so in recent weeks I’ve been asking that it sound juicy, that it be expensive, that it seems like a lot of resources and a lot of people. I’ll tell you more: when we went to the Latin Grammys with C Tangana we still had nothing recorded in the orchestra and the bases weren’t complete. And two weeks after returning from Las Vegas, the album is already in place.

-There you gave the last seam.

-Yes. On the last day we released two songs and there were ten more, a round number, with a total of 35 minutes and five songs on each side of a vinyl. Someone told me it was too short, so I started looking for records that were less than 40 minutes long and found Mix, of the Beatles. And I stayed calm because this is my favorite album.

Details of the new tour

Over the past few months, it has been said on several occasions that these shows at the Gran Rex in Buenos Aires will be the start of a new world tour.

However, this will not be the debut itself. According to the musician, “There was a dress rehearsal in Madrid and a first concert in Girona, both with this format, that the band arranged the way we would here. I feel like I could play six times in a row in the same room will complete the integration of the concert, the repertoire and the new format “.

-How’s that format?

-The stage is very naked. I would have three men and three women facing each other, with a central corridor, as if the stage were divided into a river or a blank page of music, like an album cover. Then there will be redistributions, but that will be the axis. The nice thing is you get eye contact with the people you’re playing with. At the same time you have the public half sideways, but we will all meet.

-Usually the other musicians are behind you.

-Normally you see nothing and you seem to have no perception in the band. It’s a very innovative approach, focused on having female energy, different music and musicians with important single projects. It was also the first time we would work without a floor monitor, everyone with headphones, something I never used. That was the last step of the experiment, to see how it turned out, because in Madrid and Girona I wasn’t very comfortable.

The album ink and time

The ten themes ink and time have an engaging variety, from the beginning of the master plan, which grew from a few written tithes and a “geo-tapestry” made by his cousin and became the first song made for the album. The background of the orchestra appears, the phrase “love is the plan” appears and there are some phrases uttered by Rubén Blades himself.

followed strange heartwith a clear McCartney bass line that Drexler himself produced, and white belt with its great chorus that mentions “Start from scratch until they give us a white belt”.

The fourth topic is Hold youthe hit single with C Tangana that provides another rhythmic success and paves the way for vinyl’s supposed Side A closure: the beautiful song that gives the album its title, with acoustic sound with guitar and rhythm which is almost 6×8.

The opening of Side B, or the musical surprise in a streaming listen, is the addictive funky of oh algorithm, with Israeli artist Noga Erez. follow the percussion love of art and the rising climate of The day you opened the world.

The closing is one of the best songs on the album, blessed confusion (with Martín Buscaglia), and the virtual arroró of Asleepwhich serves as tying the bow to a special and unique job.

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