Of flamenco’s three pillars, cante is the one which most resists reinventing itself. Except when old revolutionary dogs like El Lebrijano come in. And setting a challenge for himself seems to be enough for him to take a new step forward in his art. In the case of ‘Cuando Lebrijano canta se moja el agua’, the challenge was to pay back with cante the compliment dedicated to him in his day by Gabriel García Márquez, the enigmatic phrase which entitles the album. And not just with any cante, but with cante based on the literary work of the Nobel Prize laureate from Colombia.

Lebrijano (Photo from Cd Booklet)

Thus related, it sounds like something outrageous. But the truth is that Lebrijano has come out of such a huge task with more than flying colors. Not just because of his creativity and bravery as a cantaor, but also due to the musical work carried out by his allies (albeit nephews): pianist Dorantes and guitarist Pedro María Peña. Both have managed to provide the album with the coherence of a whole work, weaving ambience in which the cantaor’s voice soars, an environment in agreement with the magical realism of the characters and situations of ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’, ‘No One Writes to the Colonel’, ‘Eyes of a Blue Dog’ and ‘Twelve Pilgrim Tales’.

The cantaor is superb. It isn’t just his might or the personality of his echo, but how imaginative his vocal sketches are, something which is driven forward by the fact of turning prose into flamenco cante. Something which wouldn’t have been possible without the prior work by Casto Márquez in the adaptation of the texts, picking out verses with such flamenco flavor as “the day I lost the rhythm of time, my mother was speaking desperately about you”. And it keeps sounding and tasting like seguiriyas and soleares and bulerías. His trademark can also be made out in the design of the choruses, second vocals which back the sense of the plot developed in each piece.

And the thing is that it’s an album of personalities, since the totally unmistakable mark of Dorantes is on it. The piano just as easily provides ambience as it accompanies, tocaor-style. The guitar adds weight and feeling. And then there are the complements on percussion; some clapping, some bits of brass or strings. All of it in its place and in good measure, as traditional as it is contemporary, as situational as it is evocative. The Peña brothers have simply designed the music that should play when you stroll around Macondo. And El Lebrijano tells the story.