Whoever said a man can't be in two places at once never met a two-hand tapper from Argentina. In a single CD, Diego Souto - Stickist, composer, arranger, and bandleader - marries the flair and fire of South America with the meticulous metrics of some European guy named Robert Fripp. In between the hemispheres lie the album's namesake shades of gray that pull the worlds together.
The 18-track "Ciudad de Grises + Gnosis Five" spins nicely off balance with roughly one-forth north and three-fourths south. Among the first 13 tracks are the five inconsecutive parts of Souto's "NeoTango Suite" and eight other tunes that are a cohesive collection on their own. The suite's scattered installments keep pulling the mood back toward its dark, steamy epicenter. From track 14 on, Souto treats us to a repertoire of Fripp's Guitar Craft arranged for solo Stick.
The spiciest flavors are indeed Souto's tapping, plus fabulous dashes here and there of Pablo Gignoli's bandoneon. The latter infuses the "NeoTango Suite," whose fascinating orchestration and artfully restrained composition make for a subtle complexity. Check out the call-and-response lines of the first part followed by the lolling 5/4 groove of the second, then the sampled Beat-like narration of the third. The album's title track, "Ciudad de Grises," though not numbered as such, is evidently the suite's fourth part. While it is woefully too short, its imaginative Stick textures meld a chimey chorus of the melody strings into the contrasting weight of the fifth part, which growls in a woofy bass rumble reminiscent of "Red"-era John Wetton. The last tango also reprises the melodic theme and haunting air of the first.
Between tangos, Souto detours through an eclectic list of tunes that showcase the band and his proficient tapping. Some lean Stick solos, with remarkably harpsichordal timbre, foreshadow the whimsy and agility of the Fripp pieces. Souto's melody hand, with sparkle and pop, squeezes a citric thickness from the strings, while the bass side delivers the classic punch of his Stickup-equipped instrument. Intonation is just slightly off now and then, and this actually seems to add to the off-center otherworldliness of the album.
The "Ciudad" portion of the CD closes with a bright surprise in "Asintota," which combines a steady, percussive bass motor with lulling female voices that overlap round-style for a distinctly William Orbital space mood. It's a fitting close to the album's first section, encompassing its rich warmth with Catalina Maguire's angelic vocals and more of the band's intriguing instrumentation.
Rhythmically, this band can make 6 feel like 5 (hear track 2) and 3 feel like 4, then morph that groove into 6 (track 6 into 7). On the various other tracks, hands also dance through a snap-crackle invention, a cascading finger chase or two, and rotary acrobatics that swirl like a circus calliope. And it's all done with simultaneous pizzazz and studied understatement. The CD's tight, slappy drums and amply compressed mastering add narrow focus to wider themes, and at times the result is a kind of retro sci-fi proggishness delivered through a fresh global outlook. This is the magic of Souto's existing in two places at once.
After all this, Souto breaks ranks with the group and sets off solo into the wilderness of Fripp's psyche. With only a Stick, and just the right amount of reverb, Souto launches into "Gnosis Five" with no loss of fuego carried over from preceding expeditions. These arrangements really showcase both Souto as a player and Fripp as a composer by removing the latter from his own body of work and making room for the spirit of the performer to take over within. While Souto makes these pieces his own by tackling them on the Stick, he also captures Fripp's warbling melodic phrasing and even the metallic chirp of Fripp's round-back Ovation. In the stereo mix, the Stick's bass and melody sides alternate places right and left, and the tight spacing between tracks perfectly matches a pace that Fripp himself would set. The track "Darts" in particular is quite a display of two-hand interplay that would require Fripp and a league of crafty gents to achieve.
It's always exciting to hear an instrument with western roots mate so passionately with other bloods. Souto simmers with a self-styled inferno, using his colorful band of cohorts like paint and brushes to render sonic scenes as if on location anywhere on Earth and occasionally beyond.
Find Suoto and his music at www.diegosouto.com.ar
