English and Spanish – the global language in popular music – and not just since Latin, Salsa and Socca have been celebrating their resurrection. Agua Loca master both in perfection. Even during the times while Peter Schick (bandleader and guitar player) was bound more to Blues and Rock, they were already singing bilingual.
Back then, Peter Schick prefered to play Rock riffs on his electric guitar, which he still does in tracks such as the soul-ballad “Love Will Come”. Now-a-days he often exchanges these passages with his acoustic guitar, just as he prefered to do in his duo project Sol 10 years ago. Even back then, Carlos Santana was one of his greatest idols and just like him, Peter Schick always liked to go two ways: the electric, harsh energetic Rock, the melody and vitality and the smooth and elusive groove of the Latin sound.
The new album is by far, the best fusion of Flamenco, Reggae, Salsa, Socca and traces of Rock on a Blues basis. It was an absolute “must” to put Peter Green’s “Black Magic Woman” on the album, naturally playing it in Agua Loca style – a sound of strong modernized rhythm, in which the instrumentalist Schick and Uli Frank (keyboards) interpret the original with their own personal touch. It’s not Carlos Santana, that swings the guitar here, but Peter Schick – “Germany’s best Santana” – as critics have written. Thus the album is not just an example of Crossover, it is also the sounding evidence, that Agua Loca have developed their own style. It’s also danceable, with grooves easily spun around – just the way it sounds, when top musicians, such as Lenny Mac Dowell on flute or Birgit van Straelen on percussion play easy sounding tunes professionally. The album is definitely an up-to-date production – modern sequences compliment ecstatic hand-clapping, rap artist (Jason Funky Dregz) takes over the singing from Ryno and Gina Regina after they show their bilingual soul power in songs like “Love Will Come” or “Feeling Good”. Castanet-Pop in “Islands Of Spain” and “La Plazuela” are discharged by the radio mix “Venga Tia Mia” – a simple and earwiggy song with rap-parts to it. The continuous specialty of the album is, the complex rhythms and stratified arrangements and the knowledge of a music, that is simple and danceable and completely “Un Poco Loco” – a little bit crazy – in English or Spanish.