About Calidoscòpic
A whole world, seen through a kaleidoscope...
I like to observe the world around me. I see it in many different ways, as if it were populated by a multitude of realities, one over the other, like the layers of an onion, different windows, or different mirrors that reflect our existence. In these reflections we see ourselves as we are or how we would like to be… What if we changed our perspective in viewing the world? It takes a lot of courage to do that...
Nothing is static, nothing is the same as it was before, and it will not be the same ever again. The light around us is continuously changing, and our realities change with it, and as a result of this, we have an infinite range of possibilities A continuum of alternatives in motion. We must grasp them! Our existence fluctuates and is dependant on the angle of the light that shines on us, as well as the angle from which we observe it. And of course, also the angle from which we are being observed...
And this is also true of Calidoscòpic, Anthus’s third album. It is an eclectic, multifaceted disc showcasing many meanings and many influences, They range from the most contemporary jazz to classical, as well as a rich range of sounds, from Mediterranean music to rap. And what does all this sound like? What do these genres have in common? They all transmit an immense love for music and for the desire to make music. Music that echoes through our souls. In short, Calidoscòpic is a celebration of diversity, of change, and of evolution.
In his latest album, Anthus takes his beloved jazz to the limit in order to explore new territories. His voice no longer serves only to sing, but becomes another instrument, like the drums, the piano, the double bass or the trumpet. For Calidoscòpic is true authentic auteur jazz. Innovative, surprising and a pure delight for all those who listen to the ten tracks on the disc. On four of these, Anthus uses his voice as instrument, and four are sung in Catalan, one in English and one in an invented language, a fusion of Catalan, Sicilian, French and Neapolitan.
Welcome to the kaleidoscopic world of Anthus. Enjoy the journey!
These are the ten tracks on the album:
Cubs, esferes i cilindres (“Cubes, Spheres and Cylinders”, instrumental)
Pure, contemporary jazz. Geometry and music, fused in a theme that takes its inspiration from Cubist painting.
On the track, Anthus, a keen admirer of Cubism, pays tribute to the idea of a great French painter and father of the Cubist movement, Paul Cézanne, who saw life and all objects in it in three basic forms: cubes, spheres and cylinders. Cézanne considered these three elements key to recreating, in painting, the universe around him. And that is how the Cubist movement began. Anthus also feels himself to be surrounded by a world in which elements take different forms and can be observed from different angles, changing according to the light. And they form different layers, one over the other, shapes and lights becoming a single being. We are one, but we are also, potentially, infinite.
Cubes, spheres and cylinders are also shapes that a kaleidoscope creates. This song reveals a beautiful, harmonious combination of geometric forms that provide the image for a truly delightful composition, music that enchants us, leading us on from the track’s beginning to its end. Our own lives, translated into changing geometric forms that reveal our multiple being, our personal diversity.
Elisa (sung in English):
This track, performed in a purely classical jazz style, is devoted to all mothers who have given up their child in adoption and to all children seeking a mother.
Elisa is a waltz that echoes with the great classical tunes, overlaid with an emotive lyric on an unusual theme. The piece is a lullaby that Anthus composed while working as a volunteer at a centre for pregnant girls with no money or family support. The song tells the story of a girl who gives birth to a baby girl, Elisa. Pressed by social, financial and cultural difficulties, the young mother gives up her child in adoption. Her first and last loving gesture to Elisa is to bid the child farewell, in the knowledge that a new family can give her a better future… And here we see her as she holds her child for the last time... “Dream, Dream, Elisa, close your eyes, in her arms you’ll sleep so tight… Don’t cry, don’t cry, Elisa, all your dreams come true, just close your eyes....”
Mediterraneum (an invented language, a mixture of Catalan, Sicilian, French and Neapolitan):
This number takes us on a journey back in time to the ancient tribes that lived on the Mediterranean shores.
Mediterraneum is a suite divided into four movements in which binary beats and different tones breathe life into a rich amalgam of Mediterranean sounds which the composer elegantly fuses with jazz. On this track, Anthus seeks to transmit what the Mediterranean Sea, his sea, means to him, his feelings towards a sea that was his cradle, which watched him grow and which, when he went away, called him back to live forever on its shores.
Introduction: on a mountain top, we open our eyes and there, below us, is a blue sea welcoming a tribe that pays tribute to it by intoning a tribal mantra: we are in the Mediterraneum.
Melody: an exotic language, a fusion of the different tongues that the composer has heard in his travels around the islands and lands bathed by the Mediterranean. All these languages enrich the lyrics of the song: a mixture of Sicilian, Neapolitan and Catalan, a light sprinkling of French... The melody takes us from the mantra we heard in the introduction to a folklore festival at a site overlooking the sea.
Piano improvisation: the high point of Anthus’s fusion of Mediterranean sounds and jazz. Here, the pianist Max Villavecchia gives the piece a truly memorable flavour.
Interlude: different tribal sounds and beats, one overlaying the other to create polyrhythms. Like a prayer, a ritual performed by ancient tribes before the forces of nature, the song of the Mediterranean peoples calls on the sea to give them food, peace and protection.
Closing melody: a new lyric introduces this final movement, a fusion of Sicilian, Neapolitan and Catalan in which, in their celebrations, the tribe gives thanks to the Mediterraneum for the life that the sea has given them.
Hipnosi il•lustrada (Illustrated Hypnosis, instrumental):
A track deeply infused with il tempo rubato, stolen time. The melody floats along, free from all structures. The elements vary and the notes carry us on as if we are levitating through space.
A journey to the most remote areas of our subconscious, where abstract figures made from smoke and steam carry us slowly away from reality and we fall into a deep sleep from which there is no escape. We lose our way and inevitably enter a deep hypnosis, while vocals, trumpet, piano, double bass and drums show us the way to a delightful secret world.
Metròpolis (Metropolis, instrumental):
A futurist picture, created from painting and collage, depicts cars, motorcycles, airplanes and the man who challenges himself by defying the limits of speed. A picture that reflects our deep desire to escape reality ...
“Metròpolis” is the soundtrack to the frenetic life of big cities. Klaxons sound, car brakes scream, drivers and pedestrians hurry to get to work, to get home, to get to the shops... To get, where, actually? Alienated, isolated by cement, concrete and iron monsters, by signs and the artificial lights of ever-present advertising, by factories whose entrails dig deep into the earth, whose chimneys breathe smoke and fire, by red, yellow and green traffic lights that stop us and make us go once more, by a metropolis of bright neon lights that only distract us from the real, natural signs of life and its rich, deep language.
Miratges (Mirages, instrumental):
Listening to this track is like crossing the desert. Feeling the sun’s power in every fold of your body, treading the burning sand in bare feet, breathing air that burns your lungs… And then, suddenly, seeing, far away in the distance, an oasis. But immediately shaking the very thought from your head. It must be a mirage, although since you set out on this journey you have never lost the hope of finding the promised land.
A suite divided into four parts:
Introduction and melody (vocals and trumpet):
Crossing the desert, distant voices, a tribe that comes closer and closer as you gaze at them. They face a long journey to reach the promised land. Do they see this land? Or is it just a mirage? The steam that rises from the burning sand confuses them. Slowly but surely, though, they make their way towards the oasis that has attracted them.
Vocal and trumpet improvisations:
Suddenly, a sandstorm begins, the air is full of sand, they tire and disappear among the dunes that float in the desert.
Double bass and piano interlude:
Having survived the storm, they shake off the sand that has covered them. A faint ray of sunlight shows the path they must follow. Hope is not lost; they must get up, move on.
Final melody:
In the desert, voices nearby, a tribe moving further and further away from your gaze. They have a long journey before them to reach the promised land. They see it – or is it only a mirage?
Música ets tu (You are music):
Vocal chords, piano strings, bass strings, violin strings, all vibrate in the wind, creating a melody, a symphony composed and dedicated to the beloved, and that is why you are music…
The wind blows, its breath telling timeless stories. It blows onto strings eager to vibrate, to hear new stories and breathe life into a symphony that bears your name… That is why you are music.
A piece devoted to love in which music is both metaphor and guiding thread. A track on which strings cannot vibrate without air, and air is not music unless it vibrates with the strings...
Adéu-siau pare (Goodbye, Father):
Anthus bids his father a fond farewell, though they did not always get along as well as he would have liked. The artist sings this song to his father, remembering the day he died. Now, from the distance, perhaps the son can tell the father about the dream that he never wanted to listen to, the dream of making music that his father tried to take from him. “I am the boy who sang in secret, I have flown along unimagined paths, I feel the wind in my wings and I am not afraid to face the disaster that you sold me for so many years”.
A familiar story that Anthus sees reflected in many of us, sons and daughters who cannot be what they want to be, and fathers trapped by fear of an uncertain future for the one they most love, their child… The song is for all the children who want to live their own dream, and a call to their parents to understand their ambitions and help them on their way.
800 km:
A hymn that assures us that distance cannot change what we feel inside ourselves. As the artist says, " geography means nothing to those who love”. A song that connects distant people who relive moments together in small objects and nooks and crannies around the city. These are memories that can make us better people, if we understand that "love is universal energy, a powerful desire without limits or end, a doctrine, an unquestionable truth".
Therefore, the artist says, we must fight for the one we love! This warm, optimistic song reminds us of a fundamental truth: that, sometimes, distance is only a state of mind.
Homocromia (Homochromia):
Looking at ourselves in the mirror, trying to remove the layers that cover our faces, the masks that hide our true selves, and which we don in order to protect ourselves, we are not who we really are. Only our real selves can make us happy, complete us as human beings who are capable of loving and of being loved.
The only track on Calidoscòpic that is performed by a trio, a piece written by the Catalan composer Marcos Bosch, Homocromia is an ode, a call to us to remove our masks and enjoy life as we deserve. For, at heart, being, authenticity, are gifts as rare as they are valuable.
Anthus: vocals, composition, arrangements and production
Pol Padrós: trumpet, flugelhorn, sea shells
Max Villavecchia: piano
Manel Fortià: double bass
Ramón Díaz: drums and percussion