Armik, Amor de Guitarra (Armik’s Music Publishing, Inc. [BMI], 2003)
Armik’s Amor de Guitarra is, as the title suggests, a love letter to the tradition of flamenco guitar music. Having little knowledge of this tradition myself, I was pleased to discover its appeal. For the most part, it is a feast for the ears, combining dazzling dance melodies and catchy rhythms with a solid variety of different song forms.
What is likely to attract most listeners, ardent fans of flamenco music or not, is Armik’s unfailing conviction as a performer. With his ability to shift back and forth seamlessly between rigid chordal work and spontaneous melodic improvisation, Armik rivals the best classical guitarists I have heard. His intonation is crisp, clear, and clean. His playing never becomes bogged down by the sheer demands of his own virtuosity; in fact, the undeniably difficult challenges of his music are completely eclipsed, not only by the effortlessness of Armik’s presentation, but its sensuality and general musicality. This is an artist who not only loves what he is doing, but does it well.
On a compositional level, Armik’s work is solid, if less impressive. His harmonies are lushly decorated and warmly attractive, but I doubt they are unique to the tradition. The liner notes on the CD are full of praise -- perhaps a little to full, for I would hesitate to call the album "visionary," a qualifier which implies a serious break in convention. Armik’s work is at the loftiest technical standard, but musically it expresses, to me anyway, a kind of nostalgia more than anything else.
The spectrum of different song forms is not a broad one, but it is broad enough to be interesting. The titles of the songs are descriptive, but they are more likely to have personal significance for the artist than for the listener. It is, after all, as easy to imagine a romantic element in every song as it is a scenic one. The songs are stylistically differentiated by differences in tempo, rhythm (not meter, however, as all the songs are pretty much in 4/4) and instrumentation. The latter is mostly constant throughout -- a synthetic backdrop of sampled loops, mostly of percussion (congos, bongos, castanets, maracas, tambourines and a bed of strings), but sometimes of more prominent instruments. "Fiesta" and "Dancing Camellias" (both of which, incidentally, contain the most interesting opening chords) feature an array of trumpets, dancing about in energetic, syncopated rhythms. The trumpets are a bit cheesy, since they are obviously fake, but they get the job done. "Fragile Hearts" and "Romancero" both contain piano riffs, and they boast a slightly jazzier tone. In "Midnight Bolero," which is the most relaxed and "romantic" of the songs, there is an audible guitar accompaniment to Armik’s own solos.
My only problem with the album has more to do with personal taste than anything else. As much as I admire Armik’s efforts, I have difficulty getting past the rather formulaic construction of the songs. About midway through every song, repetition sets in, and we are treated to the exact template of chords that made up the first half. Armik’s fresh improvisations keep the songs from running into total monotony, but this slavish adherence to the double-repetition rule, combined with the consistency of dynamics and the unchanging accompaniment, cause some of the songs to become slightly wearying after a while. The result is that I find myself engrossed during the opening of every song, but less and less interested as it goes on. Which is why the best song on the album, in my opinion, is the last: "For you." It represents the only instance on the CD where the accompaniment ceases and Armik has total reign over his improvisations. The solo texture, and the freedom of the rhythmic material, is refreshing. Armik never repeats his improvisations, though sadly, the track is only about half the length of every other song.
Listening to the music on Amor de Guitarra, I get a true sense of an artist’s harmony with his own instrument. Lovers of flamenco music should definitely find this a delightful album, and casual listeners will likely garner a sense of appreciation for Armik. For me, I only wish that Armik had weighed the album’s balance in favour of more free, solo improvisation; or, failing that, that the accompanimental songs could have relied less on repetition.
