ERIC FERNANDEZ
Magic Gipsy
(c) (p) 1999 Magic Square Music B.V., under exclusive license to Higher Octave Music
12tks/43mins

The amateurs of Gipsy Kings and Ottmar Liebert, that's for you! As it follows from the name of the album, that is a Gipsy music. And it is performed by young guitar player Eric Fernandez.

In spite of his young age, he has already managed to obtain wide popularity in Europe and now is conquering America. His concerts in New York and Montreal were rather successive. And success of Eric Fernandez is not occasional, because his music is not just a traditional flamenco. The music of Fernandez is filled by vital force, it is overflowing with energy. It has mixtered a lot in itself, absorbing Spanish, African rhythms and music of Near East. It is rather a Mediterranian music which now is known as new flamenco.

A lot of musicians participated in this project. In each composition you can listen various live instruments - from the well known violin, accordion and percussion to the exotic turk doudouks and arabian violin. A propos, in the composition Nostalgia Otoman, where the solo of turk douduk sounds, the Turkish motifs can clearly be felt.

Eric Fernandez is a classy guitarist, one of those, about whom you can say: This guy was born with guitar. His passages are mastery. And for making sound of the album more modern, the keyboard parts are added there.

I've mentioned Gipsy Kings in the beginning with purpose. The reason is that there's a lot of resemblance in the sound of Magic Gipsy to Gipsy Kings. Well the album of Eric Fernandez was produced by the famous Jacqueline Tarta, who has produced two first works of Gipsy Kings and many other Gipsy projects. Eric Fernandez is her favourit.

Eric says about himself: I love music and love to share happiness and life with my friends. I was born a musician, it is the best way to talk to people. On Magic Gipsy, I gave what I felt in the gipsy way. The album is crown with a very beautiful composition - Love On The Way. There is width in its sound, where thoughtful and deeply emptional guitar of Eric Fernandez brings whiff of free wind of Gipsy ways...

Higher Octave Music has gladden us once more with an excellent sample of a high-class flamenco.

Serge Kozlovsky