Listen below to ‘Emboniga’ by Mendrugo, a trio led by the infamous Hermanos Herrero – Víctor & José Luis – along with Josephine Foster. The track is taken from their forthcoming album More Amor due for release on Fire Records on 29th July.
The song is about an old rural tradition of ‘muck splattering’ where manure is applied to olive branches using a paint brush to deter the shepherds goats from eating their crop as they pass through.
The band blew in with the Levante wind. A journey West amassing a cornucopia of goods; thorny cactus figs, a kilo of salted fried fish, and a flute. Settling on the highest point of one whitewashed Andalusian pueblo, disciples gathered, following the star that shone down on their compost, growing joy in song. Such adventure unseen, unheard of, since the final 1989 episode of Los Fruitties. The congregation, sun-soaked and sweet like the sticky pine needles upon yon mule trails, descended to share their musical crop between the mythical Pillars of Hercules. Some years passed. Not a drop of the sweet honey to be heard. Until the sound of a zambomba was fatefully attracted to magnetic tape, and the gang of three, occasionally four, five and more, depending on audiences jubilant participation, grudgingly obliged to bottle cylindrically for your ears and mine what the kids were already jiving down to. Led by the infamous Hermanos Herrero – Víctor & José Luis- along with their Foster sister, Josephine, and in the fine company of other notable guests (namely Japanese free wind enthusiast Taku and Asturian folclórica Lorena Alvarez) a gathering of infrequent impossibility is now yours to repeat.
Mendrugo: Victor Herrero – Jose Luis Herrero – Josephine Foster
and with the special participation of Taku & Lorena Alvarez.
Recorded, mixed, and mastered by Andrija Tokic.
More Amor is released 29th July on Fire Records
Order via Bandcamp (LP / CD / Digital)
Photo Credit: Harry Wheeler