The first sentence of their biography on Allmusic.com calls twosome Rodrigo Y Gabriela a “flamenco duo.” Which is about the same as calling foie gras a “dip” or Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. a “black dude.” Okay, yeah, you could argue that the description is technically true on some level, but it fails so spectacularly to express the import or essence of its subject that it’s pretty much useless.
Yes, Rodrigo Sanchez and Gabriela Quintero are Mexicans who use acoustic guitars to produce complex, exotic music that often evinces a Latin flavor. Those sounds and styles, however, represent only a fraction of the myriad influences — garnered over the course of a journey that’s taken the pair from their teenage years as Mexico City speed-metal musicians to buskers on the streets of Ireland, then to headliners at legendary European halls and back to their native country as a critically-acclaimed act — that shape Rodrigo Y Gabriela’s evocative, multilingual aural persona. The duo’s eponymous 2006 breakthrough showcased them as musically omnivorous fans and practitioners of everything from rhythmic funk and adventurous jazz to complex Spanish, South American and Middle Eastern traditions, executed with original flair and virtuosic precision.
This article appears in Mar 10-16, 2010.