¡Fandango! Sones Jarochos de Veracruz

A coastal offshoot of the Mexican folk music scene that burst into life during the 1970s, son jarocho has roots in the agricultural region outside Veracruz. Gilberto Gutiérrez Silva was barely out of his teens when he travelled to Mexico City and heard a Paraguayan duo playing music of his own heritage. He managed to get hold of a slender eight-string guitar called the jarana jarocha and founded Mono Blanco – named after a mythical ‘white monkey’ of Lake Catemaco. A fandango in this context means an all-night community knees-up but these 12 songs have subject matter that ranges from intimate conversations about love and desire to herding cattle, scabies and a friar who likes to show passers-by his ‘chuchumbé.’ The lead vocal is plaintive, often pained (think ‘La Bamba’) and a rural fatalism is the default mood. But it comes laced with dry, black humour, its lively litanies delivered via call-and-response, and as much bathos as pathos.

Lilting, poetic refrains in the lyrics echo the meandering scales produced on the diverse guitar-type instruments, enlivened by rattling percussion from the quijada (horse or donkey jawbone) and tambourine, plus flamenco-style footwork. ¡Fandango! is a joy to the ear, and a balm to the heart.