En Familia by VAINICA DOBLE

This is a very important record for us. Partly because it’s the most ambitious of our releases so far, and at the same time one of the most exciting and thrilling ones. It’s a true honour for Elefant Records to release an album by VAINICA DOBLE, one of the best and most singular bands in the history of Spanish pop. And one of our all-time favourites. A two piece formed by Gloria Van Aerssen and Carmen Santonja, two women making music since the early seventies. We’re fans, and some of the best Spanish pop bands of the last twenty years are fans as well. Just to mention the ones which are in Elefant: LE MANS, FAMILY, NOSOTRÄSH, Carlos Berlanga... The influence of VAINICA DOBLE’s music and words can be easily traced in their music, and they have inspired many other bands in the eighties. Though VAINICA DOBLE has never been a big-selling act -they are too special for that- several generations of Spanish pop fans have adored them, and keep doing it. And now we want the rest of the world to get into the wonderful world of VAINICA DOBLE, as it’s never too late!!!

Their music is very difficult to describe: a mixture of folk, classical music and psychedelic pop; besides, the lyrics are incredibly special, mixing childrens’ tales, tradition and humour in a unique and very talented way. The English for VAINICA DOBLE (“Double hemstitch”) can give you a hint of the very special endearing and feminine touch of most of their songs.

The first contact between VAINICA DOBLE and Elefant took place in 1999, due to an homage some VAINICA DOBLE fans organized in the shape of an art exhibition. Some of these fans were also very important Spanish painters, like Juan Genovés or Pablo Pérez Mínguez, and there were also many musicians, actors and artists in general. Elefant released the “catalogue/souvenir” of this exhibition: a CD-Single/seven inch with some 70’s VAINICA DOBLE tv soundtracks unreleased till then, plus an exclusive new track, unavailable elsewhere: “Coplillas de la mitómana”.

This being done, the idea of releasing a whole new VAINICA DOBLE album in Elefant was suggested, and that’s how “En familia” was conceived. This record will mean the chance for all-time fans to reencounter VAINICA DOBLE as brilliant and inspired as ever (and that’s too much to say, after thirty years of making music!) and we also want it to be a way for young people to know them. And of course for all the people outside Spain who never had a chance of listening to them, as this is possibly the first time a VAINICA DOBLE record will be sold outside Spain. As we said before, better late than never.

The following lines are specially dedicated to the ones that will discover VAINICA DOBLE with this new album. Their career is so long, they have made so many interesting and amazing things, that we thought it would be great to introduce them to younger and foreign audiences in a complete, full-detailed way.

Gloria Van Aerssen and Carmen Santonja met in the 1950’s in Madrid. They soon realised they had a lot in common: some famous ancestors (Carmen was great-granddaughter of Rosales, a very famous Spanish painter; Gloria’s father was a Dutch baron, and she was a distant relative of... Audrey Hepburn!), a penchant for art (Gloria studied ballet and fine arts, and Carmen studied music at a conservatoire) and above all, they shared an enormous love for all kinds of music, from Schummann to THE ROLLING STONES.

Some years later (1966) Gloria and Carmen decide to start making music together. At that time, Gloria was fully dedicated in caring of her four children (some of them would turn into musicians and collaborate with them, even in this new album) whereas Carmen started to appear in short roles in very important Spanish films as she was friends with directors like Jose Luis Borau, Jaime Chávarri or Manuel Summers, besides being sister-in-law of another notorious filmmaker, Jaime de Armiñán. So she ended up in films like Summers’ “La niña de luto” or Marco Ferreri’s “El cochecito”; at the time she was also appearing in a children tv show with another new actress, Chus Lampreave (who would later appear in short roles in most Pedro Almodovar’s films).

The first intention of Gloria and Carmen was to compose soundtracks for films and tv shows, and songs for other bands/sartists. They first composed several songs for a tv series directed by the aforementioned Jaime de Armiñán. The series was called “Fábulas” (“Fables”). Each episode featured a story inspired in a classic fable, and opened with a VAINICA DOBLE song alluding to the title fable. Some of these “fable” songs, like “La cigarra y la hormiga” (“The cicada and the ant”) or “La cotorra” (“The cockatoo”) finally appeared in VAINICA DOBLE albums; but most of them were never released in records. VAINICA DOBLE also wrote songs for Jaime de Armiñán’s first movie: “Carola de día, Carola de noche”. Soon afterwards they also wrote songs for a debut movie: the first one directed by Iván Zulueta (“Un, dos, tres, al escondite inglés”). Iván was also a graphic artist, so he designed some of VAINICA DOBLE’s sleeves; but he’s mostly known for his second (and last, so far) movie: a very mysterious, avant-garde film called “Arrebato” (1980).

VAINICA DOBLE got in touch with Spanish Columbia label in 1969, and after writing some songs for a band called NUEVOS HORIZONTES, in 1970 the first VAINICA DOBLE single is released, containing two excellent songs: “La bruja” and “Un metro cuadrado”. Their first album would appear a year later, released by Opalo label. This is a classic album: a superb collection of magic, innocent and eccentric songs overflowing with personality and imagination, in full contrast with the rest of Spanish musical productions of the time. This, of course, made the band and the album to go quite unnoticed. To make things worse, the label went bankrupt soon after, and the album wasn’t reisssued in CD till the late nineties. So it was unavailable for a long time. In any case, this also meant the beginning of a constantly growing cult around the twosome. Before Opalo label dissappeared, three more VAINICA DOBLE singles were released: two contained new songs for new Jaime de Armiñán tv series (“Refranes” and “Las doce caras de Eva”) and the other was a “Christmas” single, with two delightful Christmas carols à la VAINICA DOBLE. Both album and singles were highly seeked-for collectors’ items for decades.

In 1973 another label (Ariola) releases VAINICA DOBLE’s second album, “Heliotropo”, which probably is the couple’s most famous album. By this time they play some live gigs, though they have rarely played concerts since then. From then on the lapse in time between their recordings will be bigger and bigger. The constant changes of recording company, the blindness of media and audience towards their music and the band’s disinterest for playing gigs will be usual in their career. Besides, Gloria leaves Madrid and moves to Altea, so the band’s activity is scarce for a time. Despite of this, they manage to complete another film soundtrack, this time for Jose Luis Borau’s “Furtivos”, a film which is received enthusiastically by media and audience.

We meet VAINICA DOBLE again in 1976, with a third album called ”Contracorriente” (“Against the current”).This time they rock harder than ever, and the whole album means to be a claim against any kind of political oppresion (General Franco had died the year before, finishing a dictatorship of almost 40 years). In the eighties they release three albums, and they are discovered by a new generation of Spanish musicians and artists, that treat them as a very important source of inspiration for their own subsequent creations. That would happen again in the nineties, where they will be supported and acclaimed by bands such as TERRY IV, FAMILY, LE MANS or LA BUENA VIDA.

1997’s “Carbono 14” could have been their very last album. Unfortunately, this was a complete failure as the natural, fresh moods of VAINICA DOBLE were dressed with a very unsuitable production and arrangements. Both band and fans were very disappointed by the final result. This album was meant to be their very last one (both Carmen and Gloria were in their midsixties by then) but it wouldn’t have been unfair to end VAINICA DOBLE’s excellent career with such a bad album.

Luckily enough, “En familia” bring us back the old VAINICA DOBLE as endearing, funny and brilliant as they’ve always been. They were conscious this was the very last time, and they were right, as Carmen Santonja passed away shortly after the recording finished. This surely will be focalized by all the media when reviewing the album, specially in Spain. But we must insist on the fact this is a extraordinary album, an album that can be enjoyed by itself, not just for being the “last” album. In fact, this is one of VAINICA DOBLE’s best works of their whole career, and that’s saying too much taking into account they have made such masterpieces as “Vainica Doble” or “Heliotropo”.

In this recording Gloria and Carmen have been surrounded by their most beloved ones, to create a familiar atmosphere, as the album title implies. Three of Gloria’s sons (Alvaro, Diego and Laura de Cárdenas) play instruments, sing backing vocals and even compose some songs. Besides, Alvaro is the artistic producer of the record, something he had already done in the past.

“Chiribitas de limón” (“Little lemon sparks”) is the opening track. For all the ones that listen to VAINICA DOBLE for the first time, it can be a real shock to enjoy Gloria’s supreme vocals, which are completely unique. The song talks about how the vision of someone you love can send shivers down your spine, and make you eyes lit up with “little lemon sparks”. For all VAINICA DOBLE fans, it’s very easy to identify this feeling with listening to their music again.

“El ruido” (“Noise”) criticizes(always in good humour) someone who is making too much noise, so our heroines cannot fully enjoy “the whisper of the breeze, the laughter of logs burning, the sound of planets turning around the sun”.

“El pintor” (“The painter”) was written by Alvaro de Cárdenas and Carmen Santonja (lyrics). It’s a tender portrait of an amateur artist who falls in love with his model, too beautiful to be recreated in a picture. It has one of the most beautiful melodies in the album.

“Don Marcial” (“Mr Marcial”) is a full-detail portrait of a day in the life of an apparently ordinary man, which ends up to be not that ordinary. Everything is narrated in an endearing, comical way, though the tone gets more bittersweet little by little. As most of the lyrics in VAINICA DOBLE, it’s written by Carmen Santonja, one of the best song lyric writers in Spain.

“El museo” (“The museum”, lyrics and music by Laura de Cárdenas) is one of the funniest songs in the album, about someone who is really tired of visiting museums and what she really wants is to get out of the museum and eat some ham and prawns in a bar.

“Dices que soy” (“You say that I am”) is quieter and more minimalist: Gloria’s voice sounds naked, with not too much musical accompaniment (just piano, strings and guitar). It’s really amazing to listen to her, as she sounds as fantastic and lively as thirty years ago.

“El rey de la selva” (“The king of the jungle”) is a new version of some of those “Fables” written in the late sixties for Jaime de Armiñán’s eponymous tv series, though it was never released in an album till now. It looks childish and gentle in the surface, but in the inside it’s a cruel and hyper realist tale about growing old in a world ruled by the young and strong: “the king of the jungle doesn’t admit his decline, he looks like a clown dressed in satin... his hind legs grapple the throne, his trembling claws grasp the sceptre”.

“La vegetariana” (“The vegetarian”) makes fun of people who goes too far with their “healthy” life. It’s another endearing portrait, full of criticism but gentle at the same time, something Carmen excels at.

“Nana en re” (“Lullaby in D”) is one of the most charming tracks in the album. The song is about Gloria’s grandchildren, which are the children that sing the chorus!. By the way, note “D” is called “Re” in Spanish, and the first word in all the lines in the chorus start with “re” syllable.

“La flor de la canalla” (“Flower of the rabble”) shows up why VAINICA DOBLE have always defined themselves as a “rock’n’roll band”: despite most of their songs are delicate and sweet, they always include some rocking track in their albums: the lyrics in this song are a comic strip-like rambling down the underworld of Madrid, “among junkies, dealers and hookers”.

“Quiero tu nombre olvidar” (“I want to forget your name”) bring back VAINICA DOBLE at their romantic best. This is something only they can do, to go from one extreme to the other, and always sound great. In these kinds of delicate songs Gloria’s voice sounds at her very best, very moving and passionate.

“El chalé” (“The detached house”) is a parody of the advertising language, and its sometimes deceiving tricks.

In “Página en blanco” (“Blank page”) the writer (Carmen again) talks about the problems about writing a new song; to get inspired she tries to watch tv, but everything she finds is so appalling (as Spanish tv is not going through a very good phase!).

“La chinita de Shangai” (“Little Chinese girl from Shangai”) is one of the lightiest and funniest songs in “En familia”, a burlesque Eastern tale in which the mystery and exotism typical in these narrations take a very unexpected shape.

“Caballero medieval” (“Medieval knight”) is a nostalgic, romantic portrait -”You were my medieval knight, noble and loyal in my grey, daily grind of those days” which comes to the present days, with the inevitable funny touch “and my old teenage love feeling has arised again, and that’s a bit indecent for someone of my age”.

“El paisaje” (“The landscape”, music by Diego de Cárdenas) is the moving farewell, with many members of Gloria’s family in the song (her daughter Laura plays cello, her sons Alvaro and Diego sing backing vocals) gathered around this beautiful song which means the ultimate full stop in a intermittent, subterranean but extremely brilliant and inspired, unfortunately completely unknown outside Spain and not even very popular in their own country despite thirty years of work and great songs. If you enjoy this record try to get their previous albums (see discography below) as VAINICA DOBLE is a key element to understand Spanish pop music in the last twenty years.