There was a time when within pop and rock you waited for the new album by ... in large part to see how its sound had evolved.
Punk came along, then grunge, and then — horror — cell phones with their post-war transistor speakers, and it all fell apart.
That is why today it is astonishing that an interpreter has spent four years to make a record in which precisely that care of sound prevails.
His name is Sergio Vallín, he is Maná's guitarist and his solo work is titled
Microsinfonías.
Well yes, we are talking about an instrumental work recorded and mixed with the Dolby Atmos system in which Vallín, apart from his search beyond the barriers of his own sound, has involved a large cast of Latin and international music figures: from Carlos Santana to Juan Luis Guerra, from Alejandro Sanz to Fher Olvera - his fellow vocalist from Maná - or from the violinist Ara Malikian to the guitarist Steve Vai with the Prague Symphony ...
But in
Microsymphonías
not only those luxury cameos count: despite being a solo work, it is a joint work in which, at the level of the musicians, a co-producer and arranger like Edy Lan and a sound engineer like Mikel stand out. Krutzaga, who elevated the proposal beyond the original starting point.
It was the latter who, as he checked the wealth of sonic nuances on the album, said: "Why don't we record and mix it in Dolby Atmos?"
Vallín was not very aware of this system before receiving the proposal.
Until recently, surround sound was more typical of cinema than recorded music.
"But from now on it will prevail", believes the Mexican guitarist.
The material he was working with was conducive to experimentation.
Apart from his own compositions, he insisted on arranging well-known songs that on his album acquire another atmosphere, such as
Vivir sin aire,
by Olvera;
When nobody sees me,
by Sanz, or
Bachata rosa,
by Guerra.
In addition, he invited them to participate by playing instruments with which they usually do not perform, such as the flamenco guitar for Sanz or the harmonica for the Maná singer.
Vallín, a perfectionist, discreet and imaginative, was knocking on each of its doors and no one refused.
He traveled to record the scores bit by bit: from Miami to Prague, for the symphonic sessions;
from Aguascalientes, where he lives in Mexico, to Amezketa, near Tolosa, in Gipuzkoa, to shut himself up in the recording studio with endless sessions with Krutzaga and Lan, or to Madrid, a city he adores and where he often drops by to see his friends and, incidentally, buy guitars in their reference shops and workshops.
In them he makes his own creations sound, such as
Naked
or
Don Sergio,
dedicated to his father: “I wrote it when he lived.
We come from very humble families.
As a boy, he tended sheep.
Hence, I came up with something so bucolic but at the same time a tribute to a sacrificial man who was the same shepherd who sold pots and copper or made his living as an accountant in a soap dish ”.
Remember to accompany him in his work.
From there, probably, and from his mother, come the sensitivity, courtesy and commitment.
Key elements, he believes, in the training of a guitarist.
His uncle Ciro, a vocational musician, also influenced that.
If the nephew allowed himself to be seduced by heavy and rock, his uncle enriched him with classical music and traditional guitar repertoire.
This is how Sergio Vallín, between Santana - now a friend of his - and Angus Young, intruded on more virtuous grounds with Paco de Lucía, Andrés Segovia and Narciso Yepes.
Many of these elements resonate in
Microsymphonías,
the work of an eclectic and artistically ambitious author, wrapped in luxurious sound.