It’s likely that I don’t know where I’m going with this, but that’s okay, when you don’t have great expectations you seldom experience disappointment, and as much could be said of Laura Lopez Castro; you don’t where it’s leading, but for all its sighing, spectral elusiveness it’s still a wildly seductive journey even in spite of Castro’s convoluted and slightly misleading history. On the surface of it, it sounds almost casually certain that Castro was born, bred and beautified in the swarthy, sweaty enclaves of Ipanema in a district not too far removed from the beach apartments of similarly bewitching Bossa-gods like Jobim, João, Astrud Gilberto, and Stan Getz. But she wasn’t. Castro was actually born in Stuttgart, Germany born of Spanish immigrant parents and began her career in abortive indie rock bands before teaming up with composer, producer and gentle Flamenco string-stylist, Don Philippe – a partnership that started with the duo practising classic covers of A.C Jobim, Baden Powell etc and progressed to working with original compositions. Sure the roots of the album lie in Bossa Nova, but there’s also a fair old modium of melancholy folk and jazz thrown into the brew, separating the album from nu-Bossa sweethearts like Bebel Gilberto and forcing her into a cockpit already occupied by the likes of Juana Molina, Keren Ann, and Nick Drake (there’s even a smidgen of The Cranberries’ Dolores O Riordan lurking around in Castro’s vocal habits too – but we’re naturally willing to ignore that).
’Mi Libro Albierto’ may be a slightly misleading proposition. It hankers after the moist, dreamy poetry of the 1970 South American songwriters certainly, and it seems almost immaculately designed and conceived but the prevailing simplicity and honesty of tracks like ‘No Es Por Ser Ni Por Etar’ and ‘Equi Estas Tu’ salvages a modestly pleasing album; gentle, affectionate and foaming with creamy Bossa and slidey bass.
Sung entirely in Spanish, and rarely straying beyond a cello/trumpet/guitar template, ’Mi Libro Albierto’ may test your provincial patience, but as tests go, it must rate as one of the sweetest.