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Artist: Radio Tarifa
Category: Europe/ Middle East
Tarifa is the southernmost point in Spain. Wind surfers who skim along the waves surging into its sandy beaches do so almost in the shadow of the mountains of Morocco which loom just a few miles away across the Strait of Gibraltar. There is no radio station here, but three musicians who came
together in Madrid in the late 1980s decided to name their part-time passion after the town.
It was as a way of signifying their celebration of the musical crossroads of the imagination they were exploring. Ever since the release of their first album Rumba Argelina in 1993, they have drawn critical accolades both in Spain and abroad. Their music is not so much a fusion as a mosaic of Iberian cultures past and present - a celebration of all things Mediterranean and modal.
Though for live performances they use an expanded multi-cultural line-up, the three core musicians still come up with most of Radio Tarifa¹s recorded music.
FaÃn S. Dueñas contributes many of the Arabic flavours with his use of oud, gimbri (Moroccan banjo) and percussion instruments like the darbuka. Vincent Molino plays an astonishing array of exotic and archaic wind instruments which often give their music a mediaeval feel. The grainy wheeze of crumhorn, the Egyptian double clarinet, and the ney are just a few of his favourites. Finally, the charismatic singer and front man BenjamÃn Escoriza brings his compulsively listenable smoky voice and experience of flamenco to the mix.
The songs themselves are often sourced from Arabo-Andalucian, Jewish and Christian traditions with updated lyrics and radical arrangements that effectively make them entirely new creations.
Their third album Cruzando El RÃo was released earlier this year and seen by many as a return to form. It took their innovations several steps further, introducing electric guitar, their first female guest vocalists and even a version of a Japanese folk song. Fans have come to expect the unexpected from these mercurial Spanish innovators.
Biography by Jon Lusk, November 2001
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