Flamenco, jota, alalá and habaneras join hands to go on stage with Enredadas. They are Uxía, Carmen París, Ugía and Martirio, four voices that combine a repertoire of regional music drawn from the careers and imagination of these veteran ladies of song. They are a magical conjunction of witches whose songs are difficult to find on the internet, something they are proud of and which forces anyone who wants to listen to them to attend one of their concerts, like the one on March 23 in Lleida, within the Músiques Disperses festival. La Vanguardia subscribers will enjoy a 2 for 1 offer (two tickets for the price of one).
“It is wonderful how we can join our experiences in the cultural fabric, sing jota, sevillanas or habaneras copla”, explains Martirio from Huelva to La Vanguardia, in a conversation with Galician Ugía Pedreira, where they talk about their common project and repeat, about everything, how much these indomitable characters admire each other. “Freedom is paid very dearly” says Martirio “and the four of us are at the same point after having had enough of working.” It was the other Galician in the group, Uxía, who was responsible for uniting the quartet in 2019 for a single concert, but they have been meeting on the road for four years now. “We’ve known each other for a long time, I admire her, she’s a great researcher of popular music,” Martirio says about Uxía, while taking the opportunity to dump a truckload of praise on Ugía, who doesn’t stop laughing when she listens to them. “She’s wise,” he explains, which doesn’t stop you from “having to laugh with her.”
When they get together on stage, the quartet’s experience in their individual careers becomes “entangled” giving rise to folk fusions of all kinds. “I didn’t know that Galician could be flamenco so much”, explains Martirio, for whom the experience has served to savor “the wealth of folklore” that exists in Spain. For her part, Ugía values ??the “seduction of looking for oneself on stage” as a consequence of the difficulty in rehearsing together, forcing them to meet before concerts or to see each other by videoconference. “Not everything has to be very tied up”, she explains, highlighting how interesting it is to sing La bien pagá with Martirio or a habanera with Carmen París. “There are many genres that we had already dealt with in the world of folk fusion”.
“This thing about not having a record or a video plays in our favor,” explains Martirio, “it’s like going back to the traditional method” with what is surprising for the viewer, who also finds himself in a setting that both define as marvelous. “We look like a meeting of four witches, each one representing a type of music from Spain, and that has to go very well”.
“We are lucky that there is a folk boom” explains Ugía, highlighting Rodrigo Cuevas, Joaquín Díaz or the acclaimed Tanxungueiras, a movement that has been worked on a lot in Galicia, particularly. “Carlos Núñez already did a lot of fusion in the nineties, there is a very powerful base.” So is there room for folk in the days of reggaeton? “Yes”, Martirio answers convinced, “when one investigates and is sure of one’s roots, it doesn’t go out of style”. However, she points out that “I have not seen a more difficult time than the current one to publish a song.” “Latin is on very different music industry paths” corroborates Ugía, who sees Enredadas as “a star, an obligation” for its members, who seeks their performances “outside the normal and current system”, putting what and the how before the when.
“You have to go, it’s a feminine and feminist ceremony, concludes Martirio”, who, in addition to becoming involved, continues touring with his son Raúl Rodríguez with the project Travesía while preparing to record a selection of tangos in flameno compás. For her part, Ugía continues to perform in the wake of Segmento cantábrio, the album that she published in 2022 after seven years of silence, and that she presents with the care that characterizes her because “not just any concert is worth it.”
