TRISTAN has been the last member of the Madrid collective Russia-IDK to release an album. ‘TRISTÁN, Ahora Con Reloj’ is a curious and meticulously produced amalgamation of his musical interests, some of them focused on rarely claimed vintage styles, such as exotica, new age or Italian synth-pop, alternating with other more or less conventional ones.
The most accurate exercise in ‘TRISTÁN, Ahora Con Reloj’ is without a doubt that of ‘Verónica’, which unites TRISTAN and Rusowsky in an exploration of the lounge and bossa of the 60s, or that thing that was called muzak. Names like Henry Mancini, Walter Wanderley or Cal Tjader come to mind listening to the instrumentation of ‘Verónica’… except that TRISTAN writes a melody that Astrud Gilberto, or his fan Guille Milkyway, would have liked to sing.
TRISTAN and Rusowsky dream of the titular ‘Veronica’ in the song, and as they think of her, melancholy, the sun rises, and a background of strings warmly surrounds their voices and harmonies. The song could not end in any other way than with some happy “sha la las” taken directly from the easy listening repertoire of the 60s. While a “fade out” says goodbye to the recording, you are eager to play it again.
