Alegrias (Picture Disc)

VINYL FORMAT. Picture disc! Recorded in 2006 in Spain on a rooftop in Cordoba with Howe Gelb's "Band Of Gypsies" and virtuoso flamenco guitarist Raimundo Amador (who has also collaborated with Bjork and BB King), Alegrias is the latest excellent chapter in Gelb's lengthy discography. Many have tried to blend flamenco into their style and failed, but Gelb seems unable to stumble no matter what he tries his hand at. Here he manages to seamlessly sear together flamenco rhythms with echoes of his own Arizona desert...perhaps the common denominator being the fact that Spain and the American southwest are culturally (and musically) linked by so many hundreds of years of history. Mixed by the legendary John Parish (PJ Harvey), Alegrias sails effortlessly into uncharted seas.