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A piano plinks, just a microtone away from honky-tonk. A voice enters, friendly, confidential, an accent somewhere between South and North America. “Hello everyone, Juan speaking. You’re listening to my seventh studio album . . . This time around you catch me in Montevideo, the city where I was born and grew up. Though I’m from here, this is the first time I get to record an album here. I have always longed to do this.” The voice starts to break up, fracture, repeat. “Let’s get to it, make it through it, MVD LUV aka Amor Montevideo . . . ”
When he stops doing the reviewer’s work and gets to his own, Juan Wauters delivers an album that is charming, light and short — its 13 songs occupy barely 24 minutes. The musician spent his first 17 years in Uruguay before his family moved to Queens, New York; here he fell in with the local indie scene, playing with the likes of Jeff Tweedy before making a series of solo albums. Like a Montevideo Manu Chao, he would team up with local musicians in whichever country he found himself.
For MVD LUV he collaborates with the cream of Uruguayan musicians, notably Leandro Aquistapacie, who co-produces and adds guttural synth, Mateo Ottonello on tambores and a wide range of percussion and Cecilia “Checha” Rodrígues on saxophone and flute. The songs were recorded around the city, with snatches of street life clearly audible (children chattering at the end of the frenzied candombe drum coda of “La Lucía”, for example).
Drums are also to the fore in songs featuring murga rhythms. “Hello, hello, yes, I hope you are enjoying this new set of songs,” crows Wouter on “Aeropuerto”, “a new interpretation, a sensation. It’s a song, a wind from your lungs, that jota, that jota singing.” The closer, “Siempre Vuelven”, is punched up with explosive snare and cymbal work on redoblante, platos and bombo. The sunniness is only slightly dispelled by “Ando Con Miedo”, a song about the fear of street crime with a heartbeat of bombo legüero.
★★★★☆
‘MVD LUV’ is released by Captured Tracks
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