In the middle of the 'praos', between cider, bagpipes and tambourines, Rodrigo Cuevas has found the inspiration that he has distilled in Manual de Romería (Sony), the second work of the Oviedo artist who has collected the traditions of the Asturian mountains to reinterpret them wrapped in a mix of modern sounds and ancient instruments. After tasting the honeys of tradition in Manual de cortejo, this time the daring artist from Oviedo has dared to compose the songs himself, resulting in a new twist to folklore to remove the patina of dust that covered it. On October 18, tickets will go on sale for the concert he will soon give in Barcelona as part of the Guitar Bcn 2024 festival, in a setting yet to be revealed.
More than a user guide, this pilgrimage manual “is some notes of the things that I learned from the pilgrimages and that I think can be useful to others,” explains Rodrigo Cuevas, visiting Barcelona to promote his album in a city he knows well. Here he came to study sonology, tired of the traditional methods offered by the Oviedo conservatory. After passing through the mountains of Pontevedra, he settled in Piloña, an Asturian council where he has lived for eight years, rediscovering the happiness that he found as a child when he visited his grandmother in Rodiezmo. “I'm from Oviedo, but I spent every weekend, summer, and vacation in my grandmother's town.”
His love for the land where he lives is reflected both in the ten songs of the new work and in the four cuts where he gives voice to his neighbors. These are four popular songs that reflect a culture that is at risk of disappearing because “people make plans that are so cool in their heads that in the end you stop doing everyday things.” And as a consequence, “the pilgrimages and town festivals are running out of people.”
This pilgrimage manual is not a cry for help, but quite the opposite, an exaltation of the town festivals, the pilgrimages, where everything happens, “where people really let loose, sing, dance, commit adulteries, all kinds of things". Nothing to do with the hieratic image of the traditional festivals of the past, "if they are modest they are not pilgrimages, it is precisely the place where all those strict rules were lightened."
“I had the concept of the pilgrimage almost from the beginning, perhaps it was not so clear, nor did I have the title, but everything was directed towards that idea that I did not know what to call”, and that was born around the “different sensations about how we live.” there in the town, in Piloña, The savoir faire of Piloña.” Sensations that she later transfers to her direct effects, where she feels like a star, going down when she can to mingle with the public, “I would go down much more, but I can't because the people down there don't see me.”
If in Manual de cortejo he had Refree in the production, this time the one who has been behind the mixing desk has been Eduardo Cabra, former Calle 13, who has 44 nominations and 28 awards at the Latin Grammys. “He was an unattainable producer, it was very rare that he could work with me, I didn't even know how to contact him,” explains Rodrigo, who finally found him and traveled to Puerto Rico to record the album. “He has a very specific sound, he is able to give it a slightly brutalist point in electronics that I like a lot.
The samples rule in songs like Como Ye?! Or Matinada (Hangover) with which, as it could not be otherwise, this particular pilgrimage concludes. “It's another part of what I like to do and live,” says Rodrigo about the use of electronics. "It seemed that I had renounced it because the Courtship Manual was very profound and not at all appetizing, so I thought that here we should also include this part in the pilgrimages, since in the end the festival always ends a little like that." For the same reason, In Romería a chainsaw sounds, "it's actually a motorcycle," he points out. "Eduardo wanted to record a motorcycle and I thought it looks like a pilgrimage, everyone thinks that in the countryside there is no noise, that there is silence, little birds, and without However, no. The countryside is full of engines, chainsaws, brush cutters, quads, 4x4s", a world up in the mountains that he enjoys in all aspects, "in general it is quite beautiful, but I also enjoy the hardest parts, the cold ", making firewood, mowing, I love it," he explains, remembering that he also dedicates himself to mowing.
Illustrated with a suggestive oil painting by Javier Rivas entitled The pilgrimage of the devastated that hides nothing from Rodrigo, in the Manual there is also space to remember school bullying with Dime green bouquet. “I wanted to talk about it because I can speak in the first person,” he says, adding that “it is very important, then it affects your life a lot, there should be a lot of focus on that.” For this reason, “since I was becoming the lyricist,” he thought about writing a song “about all those things that I would have liked to have been told but they didn't tell me at that moment, maybe it can help someone else.”
To compose, Rodrigo prefers the outdoors accompanied by the guitar, although "since I don't play very well", when a chord doesn't come out, "I go to the piano", an instrument that he masters after going through the opposite, although he prefers to avoid it. “It's a pain because you have to be there, in front of him, with the guitar, if it's a good day, you stand there, you're with the notebook, you take it with you I don't know where.” The piano, “it's hard, it's beautiful, but that's very hard,” especially because, he remembers, he spent “many hours in front of a piano locked up in the city, studying, it doesn't inspire me at all.” And the fact is that the confinement and the city do not suit him, that is why he is clear that, if he has to choose between living in the mountains or making a living from music, he is clear: “Live in the mountains, even if it were working on something else.” .
