A number of months ago, on September 7, 2017, at about 8:20pm in the evening I was eating dinner at a restaurant called Little Ass Burrito Bar on the the east beach of Marine Drive in White Rock, British Columbia, Canada. I know the date and time because of the music that was playing. It wasn’t in English but I remember how it’s melody and rhythms flowed over me like the gentle running water of some forgotten but still meandering creek. The vocals and rhythmsvwere clearly Spanish or Mexican in origin but that’s about all I knew. Thankfully the Shazam application let me know exactly who it was I was listening to. And today that same application let me know when I first heard it.
In fact, I can still remember pulling my iPhone from my pocket, typing in my passcode to unlock it and opening the Shazam application. I worried for a moment when it took longer to load than usual, but eventually I had it listening as I held my phone up in the air like I was holding a lighter up in the air to a slow song at a concert. And after the app listened for what seemed like eternity, after it spent mere seconds calculating and breaking the sounds of the song I was listening to down into ones and zeros that it sent out over the air to find its match out on some Shazam server somewhere, it sent back to my screen the information I was looking for: the music I was listening to was by a group called Chambao. The song, Verde Mar.
My Shazam entry for Chambao
Armed with this information I bought their album, Esencial Chambao on iTunes and as I ate my Burrito al Pastor (pineapple and pork tacos), I continued listening to their sound that had drowned out most of the other sounds in the mildly busy restaurant from entering my mind.
My burrito elpastor ...
But after hearing them for the first time that night, I didn’t interact with them again. Not until tonight.
And for whatever reason, laying here in bed at just after 10pm, I decided to open iTunes and press play again while Wikipedia told me this about them: Chambao is a flamenco-electronic band originally from Málaga, Spain, known for a Flamenco Chill soun2d that fuses flamenco sounds and palos with electronic music. The name of the band is taken from an improvised form of beach tent that is constructed as a means of sheltering from the wind and sun.
And I’m enjoying the music. I’m enjoying the memory of that night at the Burrito Bar. I can remember parking my car across the street. I can remember the dying heat of the day. I can remember how I jaywalked across the street. I can remember reading the specials on the sign in front of the establishment. I can remember entering the small restaurant. I can remember reading the menu but instead ordering the special described on the sign outside. I can remember the one other couple who was there when I went in but gone before I left. I remember the other couple come in and order takeout while I ate. And I can remember the cinnamon churro I had for desert.
Now it’s well after 11:30pm as I pick up my phone again to type some more into this random blog posting, almost an hour and a half since I started listening to this album. And to be honest I’m surprised it’s still going as I started listening to it tonight a good 12 or 13 songs in on the Verde Mar but it’s still going strong. In scrolling through the track listing I see that this essential album would fit on two CDs if it was a traditional & tangible thing that I could pick up, hold, take a disc from and pop into a CD player to listen to not even ten years ago. More specifically I notice that Esencial Chambao has 31 songs in its track listing and iTunes also tells me the album is just over two hours long.
As I lay hear I find myself feeling lost, in a good way. Lost in that I have no idea what the music is about as I don’t speak Spanish. But I like it. I can infer a lot about what the music might be about just from the vocals, the rhythms and tempos. Some slower songs bring to mind thoughts of Garcia Lorca’s Poem of the Deep Song and the deep seeded waves of emotion inherent in those oral movements; while other more upbeat songs make me want to dance, and I find my right foot tapping along to the beats.
In the near future I could see myself seeing if I can find translations for the songs lyrics that are floating through my room right now. But not today, I’m a bit too tired for that. No, today I just want to enjoy this music. I want to get to know it, like a lover I’ve met in a bar in some foreign land. A lover with whom I share an undeniable attraction even though we don’t speak much of each other’s language. A lover who I’ll spend time with tonight, and return to again from time to time to recapture the moments and the memories. But for now I’ll sleep.
