Radio Tarifa

Radio Tarifa celebrated the tenth anniversary of their first ground breaking disc in 2003 with the release of Fiebre (Fever), their first ever live album. With it they not only capture the exhilarating fevered atmosphere of their live gigs, but also show just how far they have evolved during their first decade together. Creating magical music has been their life since, just over eleven years ago, Faín Sánchez Dueñas, Benjamín Escoriza and Vincent Molino decided to record an album in Faíns bedroom. The result was the totally mesmerising Rumba Argelina, which to their astonishment rocketed them to cult fame, placing them firmly on the map of world music innovators. An irresistible fusion of erotic melodies, it kicks in with the pattering of percussion and drums, undulating pipes and funky guitars. And then the smoky flamenco-esque rumba voice of Escoriza grabs you and never lets you go. Its a music whose vitality and emotions you can simply never tire of.
The three called themselves Radio Tarifa after an imaginary radio station. As Faín tells it, Radio Tarifa is a symbolic name and it really sums up the music of the group. Tarifa is the southernmost point of Spain. If you turn the dial of a radio there you can pick up sounds from North Africa, you hear the Arabic early morning call-to-prayer, from there you reach out into the whole of Mediterranean Europe, to the Middle East and beyond to the Americas. And thats us and our music a meeting point between all the cultures that have passed through and continue to come through that part of Spain.
Their two subsequent discs, Temporal, and Cruzando el Rio pushed their imaginary envelope of sounds further. Faín explains, They are the musical past of the three of us, from many years of knowing each other and working together. We dont make fusion music. Its more a case of utilising the mix of cultures that lie side by side in Spain, like the buildings in old cities such as Toledo: Arabic, Jewish, Christian - its those inter-relationships we explore. Then add a strong medieval background of making music without chords.
We met in Madrid, although I was born in Valladolid, Castile, Vincent in Montpelier, France, and Benjamín in Granada. When we got together in the 1980s, we all had different day-jobs: I was an architect, Vincent worked as a geological engineer on subterranean water in Seville, and Benjamín worked in TV admin. Music was our passion occupying every other moment. Vincent and I met at Ars Antiqua (Musicalis) which was an early-music ensemble playing music from France, Italy, Spain, and England even, from the 12th to 15th centuries. Of course we were playing rock and flamenco and other things too and thats how we knew Benjamín. Hes from the world of Andalucian popular music. Hes a singer of the lighter palos of flamenco, like bulerías and particularly rumbas and tangos, those songs that are shared with Latin America called songs of ida y vuelta, because they are constantly going to and fro between Spain and South America. That first disc was an exchange between us, each giving of ourselves.
Tarifas music is very fluid: Think of it like watching a shoal of fish swimming. From a distance it looks like a unit until you look closer, then you see they are all moving slightly differently. Almost all our music is modal which means it is totally melody based. Modal means its not chromatic, so it doesnt use all the black and white notes of the piano like classical European scales, and the scales do not necessarily have seven note patterns either. We all play single melody lines with different rhythmic phrasing, and the flow and the delicacy and density of what we do comes from that. The harmony is always there but we reach it another way: instruments like the winds and strings are playing single lines but there are maybe three notes in the same moment sounding together which makes a kind of chord if you want to think of it that way. We play like an ensemble, listening hard to each other, with lots of eye contact all the time on stage so we dovetail in and out of each other.
Most of the songs emerge from Faín singing melodies he composes on the guitar to Benjamín and together they discuss what mood and journey the lyrics will take. For Benjamín, Theres this chemistry between us. And this gracia: Faín always likes what I do, even when we start out with different ideas of what the music is saying which makes us laugh. For a song to work you need three essential things. First your heart, then your head, then a pen handy to get the words down, because sometimes something beautiful comes to you at the most unexpected time or place. Thats how it works for me: the music is playing inside me and the lyrics emerge in a special moment.
The founding threesome have gradually forsaken the seclusion of the bedroom for the stage and expanded for live performances into the present inimitable band heard on Fiebre.
As anyone who sees them knows, its pretty impossible to sit still when Tarifa play. From the outset there is an expectant excitement, and from the first note it is obvious that Radio Tarifa are now delivering a music which brings together ancient and modern with a much sharper harder edge than before. The use of electric instruments on stage, Amir on guitar and David on bass, creates a thrilling balance with the ancient sounds coming from crumhorn, ney, Oud, derbuka and other instruments.
Tarifas image is far from folksy; Benjamín fronts, dressed in black and wearing dark glasses (to hide his perpetual stage nerves). Amirs long hair and demeanour would not look out of place with a rock band, nor would the sound of one or two of his improvisations. Benjamíns thick, smoky textured voice with its strongly accented street intonation broods on stage, sculpting and adorning phrases with the tiniest of inflections, drawing you in and keeping you with him. The effect is of strong melodic statements, with the voice and different instruments taking up and improvising melodic arguments, like different threads simultaneously weaving a tapestry. Each song seems to pick up where the last one ends and there is a constant feeling of tension and release.
The group attribute the special super-charged atmosphere of this concert to the fact that they had just arrived in Canada after a tour fraught with difficulties. Their enormous relief at the relaxed hospitality of the Canadians comes through in the tangible pleasure and energy of their playing. This recording captures a multitude of sensations and emotions, from the confessional to the celebratory, from yearning to love, sadness to pure passion.
In itself it makes explicit how Tarifas music is always charged by who they are and how they feel. Bassist David Purdye has a clear feeling as to why they are different from any other group: They let things happen organically. Things evolve and grow. Even when the pressure is on, theyre always relaxed and very human. But then Spanish cultures like that. We sit round tables and eat and talk about what we are doing and feeling and everyone gets to know everyone else better all the time, and understands where they are coming from in their life and musically. It is very warm Tarifa culture, and you take that closeness and rapport with you onto the stage. Thats why its great.
Fiebre proved to be another critical success for the band, with fROOTS calling it exemplary and MOJO stating that they damn near ignite, pouring their souls into the set. The album received a nomination for the BBC Radio 3 Awards for World Music and was also nominated in the Best Folk Album category at the 2004 Latin Grammy Awards.
Tarifa continued to bring their exhilarating live performance to audiences around the globe, and were privileged to be one of the few western acts invited to play in the Palestine territories. In July 2004, they performed in Jerusalem, Israel, and Ramallah, Palestine as part of the celebrations of the 25th anniversary of United Nations Development Programme in the Palestine territory. In 2006, after thirteen years together, Radio Tarifa have decided to pursue other interests and play their final concerts in summer 2006, culminating with a show at the legendary proms at the Royal Albert Hall.
For a band that began life as a studio project Radio Tarifa emerged as one of the great live acts - Watching them strut their stuff onstage, its hard to deny that they have something special. The Guardian, these summer shows will be the final opportunity to catch them live they should be something special.
Original text by Jan Fairley, updated by Dave McGuire