LAURA LOPEZ CASTRO: OPTATIVO

NESOLA
RELEASE DATE: 13TH DECEMBER 2010

German-born Spanish singer Laura López Castro releases her latest album ‘Optativo’, in collaboration with French-German guitarist Don Philippe (alias Philippe Kayser) on German label Nesola. This is the third release from the duo, who together have created ten atmospheric, passionate, acoustic tracks heavily inspired by Laura’s Spanish heritage. Kayser’s guitar speaks a beguilingly simple language, with López Castro’s vocals.

‘Optativo’s’ distinctiveness is a result of López Castro and Kayser’s eclectic styles and broad influences coming together to create a collage of sounds and ideas that is coherent throughout. For Kayser the album is a result of a large South American influence, whilst López Castro’s emotional meeting with her grandmother in the Catalonian countryside has resulted in an open-hearted honesty in her vocals that is at times almost haunting.

The daughter of Spanish immigrants, Laura grew up in Stuttgart, Germany dancing Flamenco, making the inevitable experiments with her first rock band while listening to Björk, Elbow and Kyuss. Philippe Kayser, son of a Parisian mother and more than half a generation older than Laura, is well known in his hometown of Stuttgart and has been getting kudos from as far as Europe, Japan and the US with his project No Sé. He later co-founded Freundeskreis, one of Germany’s most successful and respected Hip-Hop outfits and worked closely on Joy Denalane’s solo debut ‘Mamani’, he is an avid Jazz fan and this shows in his work.

The duo are loyal to classical and Jazz forms, but by liberating them from much of their complexity, and adding a bit of abstraction, they have moved closer to independent music. Philippe Kayser enriches the album not only with his guitar, but also with drums, ukulele, synthesizer, and tambourine. Paul Kleber joins on the bass guitar and the double bass, with Jo Ambros on mandolin & pedal steel guitar. Sebastian Studnitzky has contributed an artful arrangement for strings. Another starring role on the album is taken by the Düsseldorf pianist and sound researcher HAUSCHKA, who plays on two songs and provides all-around inspiration: his primed piano adds positively cinematic dimensions to ’Noche Eterna’ and an otherworldliness to ’Mi Cansado Corazón Despierto’, enriching Kayser and López Castro’s idiosyncratic musical blend with a world-class classical touch.

nesola.de | lauralopezcastro.com | donphilippe.net