Del Sur

This mini-album was supposed to be extra tracks for a bigger project, just three songs that ran late. But it turned out they would see daylight a bit sooner than the main work - "Rain in Spain" comes out in November on Protomaterial Records (protomaterial.bandcamp.com).

It's all about Spain, of course. About the land that caught me and drives me mad with its color. Those ancient olive trees in front of supermarkets. Epic silver of old anchors. Loud cicadas and highways. Quiet fish. Just silence. And then suddenly in that silence - the burning coils of its history. Flame. Heat. Another gin and tonic, please. I won't list everything, I'm no writer. I'm a tourist. A passerby.

I've been a passerby since I had to close the door of my house in annexed Crimea. Water the grapevines one last time and set out to find new life somewhere in the world. New meanings for it. That day I understood I had become Anusim Marrano. I felt what the Mozárabe had felt long ago. I began to master the subtle art of being somewhat Morisco, somewhat Muslim. I even started to grasp something about those mysterious Egyptian Flemish Calé. I understood what it means - growing a garden at crossroads where history's elephants have trampled the earth.

The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and I don't mind either.