This week, in addition to the new albums by Bad Gyal, Morrissey and Harry Styles, the debut of O’Cristo, the project of Cristóbal Colom from Cádiz, previously on Modelo de Response Polar and Mañana, has been published. The album cannot have a more striking record, ‘A singer-songwriter must die’. It almost seems like a metaphor for what we find in his sequence in terms of musical production. Singer-songwriter sound, yes, but deconstructed.
Among 0’Cristo’s declared influences we find things like Silvio Rodríguez, but also Bon Iver. The tradition of Kiko Veneno alternates with Generation Z of Guitarricadelafuente or even with people as obscure as Mk.gee. This explains why their songs are filled with electronic details, even appearing acoustic, as happens in ‘La Buena Estrella’.
In this song we hear O’Cristo bleed to death (“I inherited the scar of the deluded, of the suicidal, of the apprentice”); it’s just that he then seems to color the sorrows with arrangements both synthetic and organic. The single ‘Up the Bets’ sung with Kike Vera Fauna is very reminiscent of Kiko Veneno, which in turn is linked in the tracklist to another of the main singles, ‘Conmigo y contra mí’.
Humor also adds that color. The phrases are often lapidary: “you have to suffer only for those who deserve it,” says ‘Raise the stakes’. For its part, ‘La luna y el dedo’, one of the most bouncy songs, has a chorus as extreme as “it’s hard to breathe with the rope tied around your neck.” The melodies and tone tend to see the glass half full.
The title ‘A singer-songwriter must die’ comes from the final song, ‘Malagueña defeated’. O’Cristo speaks of the fantasy of musical creation: “a singer-songwriter must die for the lies of his mouth / asking for forgiveness for lying would be defeat.” With some nod to political disenchantment (‘Undo the world’) and some instrumental (‘Bajo 0ºC’), O’Cristo completes a good, exuberant debut, which more than the singer-songwriter environment, and with the production of Turian Boy, refers to projects as versatile as Elastic Band.
O’Cristo performs on March 27 at the Sala Malandar in Seville and on April 11 at the Sala Clamores in Madrid. Details on Instagram.
