Tres golpes

Tres golpes is cantaor Tomás de Perrate's first album in eleven years, produced by Raül Refree, and with artistic direction by Pedro G. Romero.

A descendant of the Perrate family from Utrera, one of the great gypsy dynasties of flamenco singers, and with blood ties to other families and artists who played a vital role in the complex history and evolution of the art form, Tomás grew up living and breathing flamenco.

Tres golpes ("Three blows") is Perrate's radical commitment to representing his family name in the 21st century.

RADICAL:

1: of, relating to, or proceeding from a root:

2: of or relating to the origin: FUNDAMENTAL

3a: very different from the usual or traditional: EXTREME

b: favouring extreme changes in existing views, habits, conditions, or institutions

Perrate's raw, powerful voice is central to an album that draws from many sources but sounds rabidly flamenco. It features travelling songs, such as "Tres golpes," a Colombian street fandango, brought to the Caribbean by African slaves, reimagines other folkloric styles like the jácara and the folía in a flamenco key, and finds new ways to perform standard palos* like tonás, romances, seguiriyas, and seguidillas.

"I want to sing to the people who take their time."

Instrumental in the development of these ideas was Raül Refree, the producer who, through his work with Rosalía, Silvia Pérez-Cruz, and many others, almost singlehandedly defined the new sound of modern flamenco. Raül took things yet another step further with Perrate. He made the cantaor's deep, haunting voice shine, sometimes stripping it bare, sometimes wrapping it in such unexpected sounds like that of a church organ.

Despite being a proper flamenco album, Tres golpes is often sonically closer to the music of forward-thinking creators than to Spanish folk music, which will no doubt add to the tense debate in theflamenco world about the evolution of the genre, and its incorporation of other sounds. The discussion is incessant, fueled by those who defend the need to maintain the traditional canons.

"I don't fuse genres of any kind. Mine is a natural evolution of flamenco."

With this piece of work, Perrate has taken the legacy of his lineage, and brought it to the present. A present built on tradition, but strongly committed to the future of flamenco.