Xarim Aresté: "Freedom without responsibility is apathy"

BarcelonaXarim Aresté (Flix, 1983) is still in a state of grace and now completes the fascinating trilogy of the Ribera d'Ebre blues with Cross stitch (RGB, 2026). It maintains the connection with the almost jazzy freedom of Her insides (2022) and A new language (2024)While recapturing the Xarim Aresté guitarist of years past in a collection of "essential" and moving songs, as if he were whispering them in your ear. And once again, he stirs emotions with poetry that pursues "the intuition of a truth." "Where my love reaches, I have never reached," he sings at the beginning of the album. The live tour already has its first dates: March 22nd at the Bescanó Theatre, March 27th at La [2] del Apolo in Barcelona, ​​as part of the Huellas Festival, and April 11th at El Torín in Olot.

I read that you made the album in your aunt's old hair salon in Flix.

— It's a very small, very narrow house. My mother had four sisters. Two of them left, and then they put the hair salon in the middle of the house. I didn't see it happen, but suddenly I realized that's where the hair salon had been.

And have you finished the composition?

— Yes, I wrote most of the songwriting, and I recorded all the guitars. We recorded the drums and double bass in Barcelona, ​​and the vocals at Josep Munar's house, the producer. We spent a whole month in Flix with him, doing residencies. We never would have found that sound in a studio.

The album begins with Who knows?, which begins with the sound of things made in intimacy, like the album Nebraska by Bruce Springsteen.

— It was something like this. Munar said, "Let's go to Flix." He really liked the models I'd made; he thought they were pure, they seemed real to him. I bore him to death, but I thought he was right because in Flix we wouldn't bother anyone, because the house is on a practically deserted street. And we had all the freedom in the world.

Did you have a lot of written material before recording?

— Yes, from Unidon. I have an endless drawer full of songs, some with lyrics I find unreadable, but there are still melodies that keep coming back to me. But this album is mostly new material. There are a couple of tracks left over from other albums, but it's basically all new material.

Good sign, right?

— Yes. Besides, it took me by surprise. I was planning to make an album with cut-downs, and at the last minute a batch of songs came out that ended up making the cut. And with the pre-existing material, you end up discovering things you hadn't noticed before. Suddenly, just by changing one word, a song grows a lot. There's a song, One shore, that return from the record Mercury [2020]. It was one of my favorites, but I couldn't find a place for it on any album.

One shore It is the most elegiac song of Cross stitch, which is immediately apparent to be growing.

— Yes. It's the most narrative of them all, yes. It's a sister to the ones by Her insides, which was a more narrative album.

And the riverbank, the river, always leads to making more narrative songs.

— Yes, it's true, it's curious how this affects things.

In this song you say, "Find a shore, find a holy place..." What holy places do you find?

— There is only one, and that is one's own presence. Where there is life, there is holiness. And life exists only in one place, which is here and now. I tell myself this to remind myself, because sometimes I look for peace in places outside of myself, and they don't exist. Just as we can talk about the ego, for example, in a more academic way, it's difficult to speak objectively about the sacred, as if you could only speak of the spirit from a subjective perspective. But I believe that there is also an objectivity in the spirit.

In The shore You also talk about places free from deception. What musical places free from deception do you have? Which artists make you feel like you're not being deceived?

— Everyone and no one, because ultimately it's a construct I've created myself, since I don't know any of these artists. But that's precisely the greatness of music. I didn't learn freedom from anyone else. At school, you talk about freedom, but you look at home and ask: Are my parents free? Are my teachers free? And then I suddenly discovered Nirvana and said: This guy is free. But it was my own invention, although I saw a window open to my own freedom. In the end, I can't distinguish responsibility. Freedom without responsibility is apathy. What makes me feel free is being able to take responsibility for what I want. That's where freedom is born. The power to do what I must do.

Do all the collaborators you have on the album understand this?

— Each freedom has a special name and surname. No two freedoms are the same.

You've revamped your backing band a bit. What prompted these changes?

— It's because I wanted to put the guitar front and center. It's something I'd wanted to do for a while, but budget constraints meant I always left the guitar for last during recording, and it ended up just accompanying the others, which was also intentional because I wanted its expressiveness. But I've realized I'm more fluid than solid. And on this album, I've put fluidity front and center. That is, the band is very solid, and I'm fluid on top of the band. Before, it was the other way around. I was solid, and the band was fluid around me. And I found it interesting to do this because, damn it, I listened to other people's albums I've collaborated on, and my guitar sounds much better than on my own albums because I prioritize other things. This time, I was excited to make an album where the guitars were at the center and I could concentrate on the sound.

I get the feeling that you've always had a conflicted relationship with the guitar: one of dependence, love, hate...

— I don't know if you know any guitarist who hasn't experienced this. The guitar has given me everything. It's a constant rediscovery, because for me the guitar was a place of freedom, but when I started to feel that someone was listening to me, I put pressure on the guitar, a pressure that had never existed before. Now I'm free again from that sin, from giving it too much importance. In fact, it was arrogance, I understand.

Musically, you've kept elements from the previous two albums, because all three are...

— It's the same mine where I'm going to look for the songs.

But there are things that have really caught my attention, such as these hints you have of Miles Davis from the seventies. Candies and The descent.

— It's curious that it leads you to Miles Davis. We were talking with the producer, and we often go to a studio loaded down with records: "I want it to sound like this one, I want the guitar to be like the one on this song." And this time, since we were looking for the essence, we didn't bring any references into the mix. There's something Santos [Berrocal, producer] taught me. He said, "How do you want the vocals to sound?" And I said, "Natural." He laughed and said, "Give me some examples of naturalness." And I told him Imagine John Lennon's music, which to me was just piano and voice, seemed the most natural thing in the world. And Santos made me see that Imagine It's a highly processed song, with echoes, with reverbsSuddenly, I realized that what I associate with naturalness isn't natural at all. It's like in the movies: everything is faked. What's natural is that I sing to you here and now...

Who knows? It's natural.

— Yes and no. I'm glad you said so; it means we've done it. But it's not natural at all, because we had to fake it to make it sound natural. You know what I mean? If you want it to sound natural, it has to sound like a demo. And getting it to sound natural on the record is a feat we hadn't managed until now.

Returning to The descentI was not sure if it was you who was singing.

— Why is it so serious? Maybe. The only treatment we've used is a slapbackIt's a technology from the 1930s, and this is the most modern thing we've added. It's a very short echo, typical of rockabilly. It's true that it's changed my voice. I've lost high notes. Before, the low notes sounded unnatural to me, and now it's the opposite.

With the last three albums it's as if you've invented a kind of blues from the Ribera d'Ebre.

— AND Cross stitch It is probably the most rooted album I have ever made, but it is a root I invented.

Speaking of roots, the lyrics contain almond, magnolia, rosemary honey...

— In the lyrics, especially. I think that's a good thing. I thought that someone from the Middle Ages could read that album and understand everything. All the analogies I make could have been understood two thousand years ago and two thousand years from now.

The landscape still has a big influence on you, doesn't it?

— Yes, but perhaps more so in Barcelona than in Flix, because in the city, by its very absence, I see more clearly the connection humans have with the landscape. In Barcelona, ​​I'm not as aware of the passage of time, for example, or the seasons; I don't see people aging as much. But I go to the village and see the people I grew up with and I think, wow, how they've aged... Life is much more fast-paced in a small village, where you see the changes much more intensely.

But speed is supposed to be in the city, not in the town.

— Yes, but my internal clock hasn't changed that much. When I'm in Flix, I'm not so aware of it because it's so ingrained in my system that I don't really notice the changing colors of the trees. But when I've been in Barcelona for a long time and I go there, I think, wow, how everything has changed! Or I see my parents looking older.

The landscape of your songs isn't buildings, but the river, the mountains...

— The great feat of poetry is that it brings you closer to the truth. And this is impossible, because what truth are we talking about? But it does; it gives you an intuition of truth when it moves you. And you can only communicate truth through analogies. That's how philosophy does it, how all the great traditions do it. And the most powerful analogies are provided by nature.

Does a cliff evoke much more emotion than a skyscraper, to put it simply?

— Yes. I hadn't thought of it that way. Perhaps you're right; since I don't have any skyscrapers here, perhaps that's why I don't include them. But I also do it almost religiously: the other day I felt that valleys belong to men, but mountains belong to God. My grandparents have walked on the mountain, and my grandchildren will walk on it. Time will pass, and that mountain will still be there. Someone built the skyscraper; you can tell its story. However, there are no witnesses to the creation of the mountain; it's beyond humanity. Perhaps that sacred quality is what keeps me scratching.

Are you really looking forward to playing these songs?

— I'm dying to. Every time I release an album, you've probably heard me say it's the best, and maybe I've been right every time, but Cross stitch It sounds by far the best. And the collection of songs is the most mature I've ever made.

It's been a while since I've seen you with that kind of energy.

— Maybe it's because it's been so difficult. There's been a lot of work on this album. Besides that, I've been writing a novel that will be published in September. And this has kept me cooped up indoors for many days. I'm also excited about moving in with my partner. We've finally found an apartment in Barcelona, ​​which is more of an achievement than making an album and writing a novel together. Yes, I'm really looking forward to starting to play live. I feel like I'm starting from scratch, as if everything I've done before has brought me back to square one.

Do you plan your live shows in different formats, as always?

— We'll be a quartet: two guitars, bass, and drums. I suppose I'll also do solo concerts.

So, is all the piano part played by Meritxell Neddermann left out?

— Until the budget increases a bit, I won't create the quintet. The quintet is the ultimate goal because, for me, it's the ideal lineup.

By the way, where did the cross-stitch on the album cover come from?

— It's a painting my mother's cousin did. I've seen it hanging on the wall my whole life, but I'd never really seen it. You know how it is with grandparents? There are so many things you don't actually notice. One day I took a picture of it, and seeing it on my phone, except in the context of the house, it was like discovering it for the first time. In fact, I showed it to my cousin, and even though it seemed familiar, he couldn't place it. I really liked this idea that something that's been there, something you've never valued, suddenly, when you pay attention to it, acquires value.