Charly Garcia- Kill Gil (2010)

Charly Garcia- Kill Gil (2010)

Remember that time when the great Frank Zappa`s Straight Records seemed like a factory of musical freaks? Just remember Captain Beefheart mutant vanguard blues, Alice Cooper shock rock doctrines and Wild Man Fischer hallucinating nursery rhymes, etc., well let me name somebody who I utterly respect and who could easily be a creation of Mr.Zappa, if it wasn’t for the fact that he could be just some kind of Zappa offspring form another dimension, Argentina`s Charly Garcia could be definitely a creature born in a Zappa fever induced nightmare, a man with an amazingly bizarre intuition for rock and pop music who could easily be declared the best rock musician in the history of Argentina’s rock, and obviously of Spanish sung rock in general, Charly tremendous trajectory in rock music is an admirable one, spending decades making always innovative and dynamic music, as well as living a life full of creative ups and downs and personal turmoil, the kind of life that can sometimes outshine his tremendous musical approaches.

Kill Gil is a legendary record by Garcia, in reputation, it is as legendary as The Beach Boys’ Smile, something that might not be a good thing at all, it’s a record that has caused more expectative surrounding it, and finally meeting the fate of been seized against what was expected, Kill Gil is a genius dream, a perfectionist nightmare, a nadir so hard to reach and one that result frustrating mainly to the mind that originally conceived it, to Garcia, it has kind of become a haunting record, once he announced its conception, it seemed to be destined to become Garcia’s masterpiece, one who was destined to fulfill all of Garcia’s wildest ambitions, but one who could just as Frankenstein monster was, capable of destroying his own creator in the process.

Garcia started working on Kill Gil in 2005, it turned as years passed by into a monster, one whose ambitious production values not only included legendary producer Andrew Loog Oldman, but also production done in New York, Garcia aimed high, but we got the impression that the weight of this enormous recorded seemed far too much for Garcia to endure it, as his mind simply started breaking down in the process and his health experimented also a decline into drug madness.

In No Importa, Garcia let some pressure come out, he denounces the world as a prison and expressed his feeling to be trapped in it, obviously Garcia, a force of nature remained under pressure by his own vision and in a way he responds with this powerful musical statement, menacing drums and nightmare like atmospheres along with Garcia furious vocal delivery, kind of nightmare shock rocker Alice Cooper would without a doubt be very happy with it, Pastillas is a direct sign of Garcia`s health and drugs affecting it, it has a dream like quality and it shows Garcia in a kind of hypnotic state,

La Rehèn o la Novia is a psychedelic piece of nostalgia with a powerful production, while Corazon de Hormigon, is a great eerie piece, with almost ecclesiastic vocals sung by the great Palito Ortega, another legendary Argentinian singer, a piece that channels some of that great sixties feelings into our times, and one who possess a great and catchy chorus, Break it Up is a piece sung in English with enormous guitars and Garcia’s elevating keyboards, as in much of the songs in Kill Gil, Garcia sound buried in the robust production, but this is precisely what seems to be one of the particular features of the record, it kind of dress Garcia into a hazy costume that simply put our worst expectative to the front, but is here where Garcia does his magic and his pop instincts prevail and take him safe to the shore, as Un Corazòn Para Colgar sounds great, lo fi, dirty and unmistakable pop.

Kill Gil is not a bad record, but is a confusing one, it obviously represents a difficult time for Garcia’s genius, but at the same times founds Charly figuring how to bring back his life and reflecting his creative genius, the cover of a Lennons theme, renamed here Mirando Las Ruedas is as tender and inspiring as John`s original song, a desire to let everything go and concentrate into what’s is important, and for Garcia’s this is about music, not the fame, not the sex, or the violence, not even the drugs, Kill Gil is the work of a genius, not one understood at all times, but one who knows what he is doing, even when it seems that he don’t.