David Álvarez: Clandestino

David Álvarez has worked with Pedro Luis Ferrer, and he sings in the same Cuban trova style — good! you say instantly — friend of Ferrer’s? — bring him on! — but wait, Ferrer’s shagpile sense of humour is not his way. Álvarez’s feeling for intimacy is different, he’s more of a smooth and longing romantic, he likes a tropicalia flute, his tres is an aid to meditation, and the keynote here (aside from Love) is Vocal Control. His precise and soaring voice rises at a precise volume to a precise point and precisely stops with a precise quaver, a demonstration of aesthetic restraint, like extravagant emotions explained with short sentences. The precision never pauses, the fallibility is all in the lyrics. He could keep going like this forever, while the tres uplifts him on the silver metal cushion of its strings, and the piano clears a path for him in the intros.