Gharbí

This album has a strongly conceptual quality to it. Belmonte imagines himself journeying between Andalucía and Arabia with the purpose of telling a transcultural musical story that straddles East and West, past and present. Gharbí mostly succeeds as a richly evocative and spiritually engaging project. Belmonte’s technical abilities as a woodwind player are exceptional, and his breath control and expression remain remarkably consistent across all the instruments he experiments upon, including flute, panflutes and a Central Asian duduk. The accompaniments are elaborately textured and feature strummed buzuks, a double bass, vocals and an array of percussion. The album’s centrepiece is the ‘Suite Yemení’. Composed in three movements of differing moods and tempos, Belmonte blends medieval Andalusian harmonies with the rhythms of Yemen to weave an epic musical tapestry. Such is the success of ‘Suite Yemení’ that other tracks on the album feel ancillary and occasionally meandering in comparison.