"Algo me Dice"

These 16 gem-like songs—concise, witty, and wise—offer more evidence that Pedro Luis Ferrer is one of the most appealing songwriters working the folky outfields of today’s world music.  Though Cuban through and through, Ferrer draws not from the various forms of tropical dance genres that have made the island nation such a musical powerhouse.  Rather, he creates his own genre—changüisa—by blending the poetic sensibility and social engagement of 1960s Nueva Trova songs, with rural, Eastern mountain changuí and folkloric styles whose roots go back to African spirituality.  The sound features Ferrer’s elegant, spirited, plucked tres melodies, and his spot-on vocal harmonies with his daughter, Lena, and sometimes others.  These songs go down sweet and smooth, but make no mistake: they are the work of a top flight poet, composer and arranger. 

Ferrer’s robust tenor voice, beautifully balanced by his daughter’s luminous alto, conveys both moral authority and a sly sense of humor.  Whether singing about an all-girls’ party, featuring undressing and marijuana induced “hallucinations,” or about the misfortune of a one-armed man who falls in love with a beautiful but “dumb” woman, or about love in any number of other quirky, sensuous manifestations, Ferrer conveys a deep sense of Cuban reality, both magical and melancholy.  In the loping, rhythmically forceful “La Nieta ‘e Micaela” a young girl comes of age in spring, “like a seed under the sun.”  The spare, almost ceremonial “Changüisa de Pecador (Sinner’s changüisa)” offers a confession aimed at fending off “dirty, vile blackmail.”  There’s even a hint of political grousing—tough business in Cuba—in the song “Repeticiones,” with its complaint about, “Always repeating the old formula…Don’t argue, don’t think, don’t try to dissent.” 

In Ferrer’s art, bawdiness, humor, lust, and social commentary all come behind songcraft.  He has been rightly compared to Brazil’s bossa nova masters.  Ferrer’s catchy refrains, distinctive melodic flourishes, and succinct arrangements are flawless, and like his international debut, Rustico, this CD set gets better each time you listen.  Ferrer recorded these albums in his home studio and says they are part of a set of four related albums he will eventually produce.  That’s good news.  Ferrer’s “music without makeup” is irresistible. 

This review was adapted and expanded from one written for the Boston Phoenix.

Contributed by: Banning Eyre