Rodrigo y Gabriela – 11:11

My first encounter with Rodrigo y Gabriela's music: V Festival 2007, and they are the very first band on one of the stages, playing at 12 or 12:30. To many, they are an unknown quantity, but some in the audience are visibly excited because they've been fairly early to catch on to the Mexico City duo's third and breakthrough album, their self-titled, which had been released the year before. When they actually play, everyone is profoundly absorbed by the spectacle because Rodrigo y Gabriela are musicians who are as much about what their playing looks like as what it sounds like. Their acoustic guitar playing is so unconventional, so fast-fingered and aggressively complex, that it is a fascinating thing to watch - whether you know something about playing guitar or not, it's a gleefully bewildering experience - a collective "how do they do that?"Come 2009, and that overwhelmingly successful self-titled album is a full three years old. Through touring and the critical acclaim of their records, Rod and Gab have become representatives of many things - of Mexico, of Mexican music, of the acoustic guitar and its possibilities. With the creation of 11:11, they have brought in a few changes. John Leckie, producer of the last record, has been mostly excised - he has helped co-produce one of the eleven songs, but Rodrigo Sanchez and Gabriela Quintero have done the rest themselves. There are guests this time too - Costa Rican/Iranian acoustic duo Strunz & Farah appear on 'Master Maqui' and Alex Skolnick of thrash band Testament lends a hand on penultimate track 'Atman'. Perhaps most surprising is that the instrumentation has changed a tiny bit this time round - now don't panic, 11:11 is still a blazing acoustic guitar album, but there are a few flashes of studio effects, and one or two appearances each of electric guitar and piano, largely on the second-to-last and last tracks respectively.Interestingly, each of the eleven tracks is inspired by and a tribute to one of R & G's musical heroes, which probably at least partly explains the record's enigmatic title. Ranging from fellow Mexicans like Carlos Santana ('Hanuman') and composer Jorge Reyes ('Chac Mool') to Jimi Hendrix ('Buster Voodoo') and Pink Floyd ('11:11'), these don't radically change the sound of the tracks but rather give them a slightly different flavour and direction, which has partly neccesitated the new instrumental cameos, like the piano on the title track. It's certainly a way of spicing up the acoustic guitar-heavy sound which some may have worried only had a limited shelf life.Mostly though, the general sound here will be exactly what existing fans have been slavering after - more new Rodrigo y Gabriela. The album is made up of a host of ambitious, fearsomely complex multi-part mini-epics, forever moving from one diverse section to another, less dependent on repeated musical phrases than Rodrigo y Gabriela was on tracks like 'Tamacun'. This gives the album a massive sense of pace and urgency for the most part, as it rarely and briefly stops for breath and begins with the frenetic one-two of 'Hanuman' and 'Buster Voodoo'. Everything sounds as virtuoso and incredibly impressive as before, and Rodrigo and Gabriela have maintained their knack for never sounding self-indulgent or inaccessible. Their astonishingly talented playing is here in force, but they are dedicated to making grippingly exciting music, which they have succeeded in doing perhaps even more completely here than they did on the last album.From the gorgeous 70s car chase flick soundtrack section on 'Hora Zero' to the serene, brief and atmospheric 'Logos', 11:11 is a cohesive and yet deeply varied album. It has restated Rodrigo y Gabriela's position as quite possibly the most exciting and fascinating acoustic musicians on the planet, and will still stand up as a rollicking set of songs after many listens. 11:11 is absolutely essential for anyone with an interest in Latin American music, innovative acoustic work, and interesting and dynamic music in general.Rodrigo y Gabriela on MySpace