Apple Music has included the recent album in the playlists of its spatial audio system Pure bloodof Israel Fernandezand one Home Session exclusively with two songs: Bye, I leftin which the singer respectfully recreates this piece of Bad Bunnyy Paths and sidewalkswho recorded tangos for the album and here rises to a guaguancó rhythm of Diego del Morao. At the Apple Music Space in Seville we attended, together with Israel, a demonstration of how music comes to life and reveals details of unknown clarity and depth with this three-dimensional sound of spatial audio.
As we settle in, I ask Israel if the words in his album’s name can be rearranged; Is thoroughbred the same as pure blood? “In this case yes, because with pure blood I do not mean the purity of the breed. Pure blood has to do with a person’s loyalty, with how they do things, with not being false; That is being pure.” To sing flamenco like Israel does, you have to be pure and also free. “You have to be; In music you don’t have to feel obligated to anything; nor to follow any path or anyone. We now have so much information that it is easy to get lost; Sometimes I do it and to find myself I go back to those who inspired me since childhood: Pastor Peacock, Thomas, Manuel Tower, John Talegathe scool of Fernanda de Utrera; For me it is essential. But you can’t feel conditioned by any baggage.”
“Sometimes I get lost, and I return to those who inspired me. But legacy cannot condition you”
Israel is somewhat afraid of this experience, which occurs during the week of the Latin Grammys. “I don’t like to listen to myself too much because I get a lot of faults.” But as soon as the hammers begin to sound that open their record, Pots and pans, all reluctance dissipates. “How the atmosphere was achieved! You can hear the hammer blows, the birds; you are inside the forge. They have recreated the atmosphere that I had imagined in the music; “You feel like you’re inside the space.” The sensation is incredible, the hammer forge of Israel becomes real. In listening to the most pop flamenco of María José Llergowhat we do now, we see how they have located the elements of You look at me but you don’t see me: the opening claps, the percussive beat, the guitar, the voice that emerges; It has a much more electronic approach, which is very interesting to Israel. “My great dream is to bring youth closer to the temple of flamenco, by whatever means, but with sufficient elegance and enthusiasm; Flamenco deserves great respect, but youth is my prize, my desire is to bring them closer to the great geniuses.” That’s why when Israel does something like The Girl with the Combs at the gala Flamenco is Universal, with its aristocratic image, which is a hundred years old, people listen to it and go to it, to the root. Israel is the singer who brings the most young people to his concerts; who approach flamenco through people like him or Llergo. “And with Rosalía imagine! Because she has had the virtue of being very fond of singing and she has brought people who didn’t listen to it that much closer to it.” As we dream, Israel and I entertain the idea that at some point young people will go to flamenco concerts as much as to urban ones. “I’d love to; but it is difficult, because flamenco, like other minority music, is so special that not everyone has the ability to enjoy it; to listen to it, yes, but not to enjoy it. Urban songs have so much dimension because everyone identifies with whatever they tell; The theme of his lyrics is closer to him, but flamenco has another sensitivity that requires a more perceptive heart.”
I don’t want to stick with the sound that Apple has chosen for us to listen to; I think of a song from the 70s, recorded with the techniques of that time, with spatial effects and I ask Rocket Man. What they have done with this song Elton John It is absolutely extraordinary. “Incredible, beautiful,” Israel, sitting to my left, does not stop qualifying what he hears, launching oles after almost every verse. “You feel the astronaut next to you, that is the difference with the other times I have heard it. There is an emotional part that is breathed; “I was on the verge of crying, I didn’t do it out of shame.”
The listening continues in a car Mercedesbrand with which Apple Music has integrated the system Dolby Atmos for your spatial audio, setting up equipment Burmester that compensate for the difference in sound that would exist due to the distance of the speakers. We had never heard bulerías like this to the third world From Israel. The electronic touches that have been given Pional They sound subtle. “Look, I’ve heard it many times, but here I enjoyed it like the first time,” admits Israel. “Everything is mixed so well that the sound is perfect; I am listening to it without having to pay attention to see where something is coming from, everything is always in the foreground.” In the stereo you cannot hear all the micro details because there are too many and it is difficult to discern so much information, but here everything comes out perfectly. “Even the minimal details that I recorded after the chords and accompaniment, which may not seem like it, but are very important. And when there are silences, micro-silences, it impresses me much more, my heart shrinks; It gives a kind of good vertigo, as if you were inside the song and suddenly it was taken away from you.” When the guitar Hendrix starts to ring All along the Watchtower I perceive things I have never heard, have those percussions always been there? I don’t remember hearing those basses ever so precise and pure.
Israel and I left the demo commenting on how important innovation is to music. I ask him if in flamenco the cante or the cantaor has to evolve and he thinks that it is the latter who should do it, without a doubt. “Evolution comes from information. In traditional flamenco there are many things to enjoy, which sometimes even sound bad because of how they are recorded, but what melodies, what beautiful harmonies they have; What you have to do is derive from there, but without breaking the stick, because then it would no longer be what it is; get something fresh out of it, with your personality, with your principles.” He fits that rule; He says that he doesn’t like the way many cantaores now try to surprise, but in reality they go for the easy way, for the long chain of quejíos that leave him cold; The entrances bore him, they make him want to leave. He shows it to me by singing me a malagueña with the air of the Twinbut skipping all ayeswhich hindered him: the house where we loved each other was small. “It’s my way of feeling. To put music, melody, to the lyrics I write, first I speak them; “That’s how I see its drama.” He already has a thousand audios and notes on his cell phone for an upcoming album; He reads me the last one, from the night before, awake in the hotel at two in the morning: Fields without summit, anvil without song, song without fire; summer without sun, life without sleep; sad petals, asleep on the sidewalk, so that you could be a jasmine and give peace to those who did not have… I tell him that it resonates with me in the form of a toná and he nods. Who knows? Perhaps soon we will hear these phrases sung on that palo by Israel Fernández on an album recorded and mixed with the Dolby Atmos system for Apple Music’s spatial sound. It will be exciting.
