Pop, techno, glam rock, new wave, new romantic, baroque, visionary, extreme, innovative, ambiguous… Both his music and Tino Casal himself were in the ’80s—a land and time today mythologized by some and despised by others. an endless label that tries to describe or classify it. But this Asturian artist (Tudela Veguín, Oviedo, 1950) did not fit any of them. Or at least not just one of them. Musical concerns and virtues were fused in him, which made him a A unique and different musician. Perhaps unclassifiable. His desire to constantly innovate and find new formulas, and his own voice, had already put him at number one on the sales charts in 1981 with the Egg Shampoo. But two years later, a more mature Casal, already confident in the trust of the hardcore record market, released “Etiqueta negra”, which contained only the song “Embrujada”, which the singer would not consider one of her bestsellers. in Spain, but A musical reference to a new style, more impregnated with Anglo-Saxon and avant-garde tones.
Casal’s volcanic personality, eclectic visual style follows certain patterns, hand-stitched with his own ideas, perhaps based on the shadow and figure of a particular figure. David BowieThey did not belong on the production line of any factory, taste and fashion dictated by third parties. Casal was an artist who was always looking for work that he thought was unfinished, because his was a journey with no final destination, where innovation never ends, creations are just intermittent pauses, as if complete satisfaction is a kind of Atlantis aimed at reaching oneself unsuccessfully.
“Tino never finished the recordings, he didn’t finish the recordings. If you let him change things until the end. The producer had to tell him, “Tino, this is it.” With his creations and his constant art, everything was based on internal and external transformation,” she confirms. javier losada, musician, composer and producer with a long career, was part of the ‘Etiqueta Negra’ recording as a keyboard player. He knew Tino very well, whom he regarded not only as a friend, but as his “brother”.
Casal was a polyhedral creator, a complete artist A singer, yes, but also a composer, producer, painter, decorator and sculptor. No, he was not a Renaissance man, but a type of his time, perceiving and reflecting art with a catadioptric gaze, but also an existence and multi-colour, multiform and multi-angle. Maybe he wanted to be a work of art in his own right, and maybe just 40 years ago, in 1983, he admitted to himself the idea of ’Black Label’, which gave his second record its name. Earlier, when she was almost a child, she had been a singer. Black Sapphires; later archduke, still in his hometown of Asturias. But that restless boy growing up in a town in Oviedo wanted to take another route and In 1977 he went to London to absorb cosmopolitan creativity. It was provided by British capital. There he discovered that he wanted to be a little Bowie. But he’s a Bowie in his own way.
a new tin
On his return from London soil, someone thought they might make him a light song artist. He made it, that’s right, a Second place at the Benidorm Festival in 1978, With a song called “Emborráchate” but Casal he didn’t want to be Casal. That’s why he released his first solo album in 1981 and named it vindictively. ‘neocasal‘it was the testimony of a break, a new time, a new time, like a preface to a thousand-way crossed paths far from the past. Someone said he never wastes time looking back.
was recorded ‘Neocasal’ in the musician’s studios Luis Cobos and its production. Julian Ruiz. The single “Champú de Huevo” was number one in Spain, and it helped the record industry stop sensing huge commercial potential in it.
Two years later, he released ‘Etiqueta Negra’, also produced by Julián Ruiz; still waking from solemn and sleepy times. “It was a lot of fun in the studio, but it was also unbearable.”, recalls Julian Ruiz. “As I put all the new music coming out in the world on my schedule Plásticos and Decibelios, we knew everything. “If we heard a song we liked, we would follow that stylistic line,” says Casal’s producer as well as a good friend.
“Tino was forming a band to tour with the album ‘Neocasal’. I found out they were looking for a keyboard player and I cast, I guess that’s the only thing I’ve ever done in my life. When I met him, it was a kind of musical and professional love. Tino loved to innovate and what he wanted in his voice was innovation. After that tour, he offered me keyboards for ‘Etiqueta Negra’. I went to the studio and found Julián Ruiz. It did affect Tino’s voice a bit. Julian was another innovator”, recalls Javier Losada.
The single ‘Embrujada’ from this album stayed at the top of the sales charts in Spain for five weeks. This catchy melody was wrapped in magnetic synthesizers and a sound full of twists and nuances. “We took the rhythm and sequence of the song from the song ‘Don’t You Want Me’ by the British band. Human League -Remembers Losada-, but obviously another song is out. The intro was gorgeous and the choral intervals were masterful for Tino”.
A few weeks after launch ‘damned‘ It has become one of the most danced songs in Spanish nightclubs.. Television was both a stage and a runway for Casal, who created his own wardrobe, inspired by Bowie’s great admiration for him. From this, of course, it took a chameleon-like look and a sparkling aesthetic, but it was always a ‘native’ adaptation and interpretation.
Spanish modernity
Visual magnetism and its modernist designs attracted attention in the days of the remembered and idealized. To move. But—says Losada—“He never appeared in a documentary about Movida, interesting isn’t it? Many of these bands went to his house to see what was going on with his new album. He was always the benchmark.” “Tino ran out of the shabby shop and the only thing he couldn’t stand was jealousy. AND Tino was a very enviable person.”, adds whoever was the keyboardist in those years.
But in Casal’s case, behind what seems to represent the role of simple aesthetic appearance is an originality, achieved by his own ideas and concepts. Those who knew him best always remember that he never went out without getting dressed, combing his hair and dyeing himself. However, this aesthetic empire was ruled by a unique sound and musical creativity in its time. And that was what stood out above all else.
“Tino loved all kinds of music. People today aren’t as eclectic as they used to be,” says Julián Ruiz. Casal wasn’t one of those voices hiding behind a facade. He could reach higher pitches that few people could reach, or deeper tones, and also with little or no spoof. could fall into the seriousness of the lyrics.”Are there singers like him in Spain today? There isn’t any. Not possible. It had almost four octaves. Find me one. Do you listen to their themes? black label and you are still confused today,” the producer replies when asked if there is anyone like Casal today.
The verses and compositions of the Asturian artist concealed rebellion and discord, and poetically responded to his anxieties and thoughts. “Enchanted” was his big commercial success, but If there’s one song in ‘Etiqueta Negra’ that strips Casal of his clothes, the glamorous visual empire that always accompanies him, it’s ‘Los Pájaros’. In that song, he was able to demonstrate this skill and immense creative capacity, and paradoxically, taking advantage of the darkness of his words, shed an enormous beam of light upon intransigence, on those who judged it with an inquiring gaze filled with incomprehension.
“One of the most personal. People believe Tino is pointless, but no, Tino had a kind heart and was capable of synthesizing everything that happened to him, it’s great,” says Ruiz. “It was very difficult for me to sing like that. “Don’t sing like Nino Bravo, sing like you’re an Anglo-Saxon.”
And Casal sang in cracked and dark words: “They live behind / any society / waving their wings. / Like wounded hawks / they seek their nests / among freedoms. relatives of the night / Post-war stamps / on earth, / they do not know how to forget, / they do not want to forget, / they cannot forget”. And implicit in these stanzas was an artistic, purely human counterattack against this intolerance, “good manners,” and “what is right and appropriate.” It can be said that with ‘Los Pájaros’ Casal flew to the lands dominated by darkness to illuminate the freedom of that new time. He was born with the end of the dictatorship in Spain.
The album also featured songs such as “African chic”, which combines tribal and electronic sounds, and the melodic Poker for a losers with Casal’s amazing vocal spins. “Fear”, “Etiqueta Negra”, “Malaria”, “Azúcar Moreno”, “Legal e ilegal” and “One more minute” rounded out the list for this record.
More numbers would follow later that year, with ‘Pánico en el Eden’ from the album ‘Hielo Rojo’ (1984), the melody of the Vuelta Ciclista a España, and ‘Eloise’, an exceptional version of the song. by English singer Bryan Ryan with a sublime arrangement featured in ‘Lágrimas de crocodile’ (1987), which many consider the masterpiece of the Asturian singer.
What would happen to Casal today? Javier Losada is clear on this: “Because I knew him well, he didn’t like anything shabby, I think he would have given up. I would probably quit the musicbecause for the last forty years music has been in decline in Spain”.
On September 22, 1991, The car Tino was traveling in with some of his friends crashed into a lamppost. On the way to Castilla in Madrid. He wasn’t wearing a seat belt. The accident cost him his life. “When Tino dies, it’s like a lighthouse went out in Spain,” Losada says sadly.
Casal, almost like the lyrics, died while being flown to the hospital. birds would be a dark and tragic premonition: “Wake up. / The daylight is long gone. / wake up / Wrap yourself in darkness. / wake up / Claws of the cold night. / wake up / Once again they will catch you. / to wake up / And look, a new day begins”.