With this third edition of its “Vinos de Autor” (Signature Wines), Ponte da Boga accompanies Eladio y los Seres Queridos in their latest record of the same name, opening its doors once again to artistic creation within the cultural sponsorship project Riverside.
Our winery Ponte da Boga launches the third edition of “Vinos de Autor”, with which it accompanies Eladio y los Seres Queridos on this occasion through Academia, an exceptional, elegant and complex rosé, 100% Ribeira Sacra.
Creativity and art are part of Ponte da Boga’s identity and, for 3 years, it has materialised its will to open new paths in this area with its “Vinos de Autor” project, a series of limited editions that accompany the work of authors whose proposal responds to the same values as those of the winery.
Two years ago this limited edition project was inaugurated with the work of Vega with her successful “La Reina Pez”, followed by Budiño with “Fulgor”. Eladio y los Seres Queridos now join them in their latest creation, Academia,a work that arises after fifteen years of career, defined as a treatise on happiness.
The protagonist of this record is song, highlighting its signs of identity and discovering new structures of expressing their music. Just like in each song, Ponte da Boga seeks new expressions with Mencía. Academia is a limited edition rosé – fresh, fragrant, and fun, but keeping the elegance and complexity of the Ponte de Boga wines.
All the editions of the records that accompany the Vinos de Autorare made using sustainable techniques and artwork, as a declaration of commitment to and protection of our environment and as part of the essence of the Ponte de Boga winery, located in the impressive natural setting of the Ribeira Sacra.
This morning, the presentation of this project was held in Madrid, with Eladio accompanied by his predecessors, Vega and Budiño, who wanted to support him with their presence at the launch ofAcademia, and all of them had the chance to toast with everyone present to the success of this project.
About the rosé Academia
Ponte da Boga Academiais a pure rosé. Fresh, fragrant and fun, it maintains the elegance and complexity typically associated to the wines from the winery located in the Ribeira Sacra. It is 100% Mencia wine matured on the lees and in barrel for 4 months.
Pale pink, almost ochre in colour, Ponte da Boga Academiabrings intense nuances and fruity aromas. Its perfect pairing is associated with fish and poultry.
“Academia”, a dazzling treatise on happiness without the desire for erudition Eladio y los Seres Queridos
By Carlos Crespo
The release of a record by Eladio y los Seres Queridos always has a hint of lusty celebration. Its own and of others. It celebrates those that give it, but especially those that receive it. On this occasion, the joy is even greater due to the band’s generosity. They give us fourteen songs in «Academia», the new record by Eladio y Los Seres Queridos, the sixth in fifteen years of honest and outstanding career.
As with their previous two recordings Cantares (2016) and Historias Caza (2017), Eladio y los Seres Queridos also turn to self-production on this occasion. Not as escape or subterfuge, but as a formula that allows them to slow cook, and in each case with the timely and precise technique, songs that require it to be so.
Because “Academia” is once again, as the band has us used to, a record in which the absolute protagonist is the song, that noble concept that for the sake of an absurd and undocumented post modernity in nowadays often despised.
As expected, there is no single possible stylistic grouping for
“Academia”. Of course, the essential identity signs that have determined the fertile evolution of the band emerge. The serenity of times at that stage, always fluctuating while exciting, where pop and rock converge, filled with a vibrant internal energy that overflows with intensity at times. All, of course, with immense poetic charge and cryptic seduction in the lyrics. But far from delighting in the familiar, Eladio y los Seres Queridos explore new structures of expressions of their music in “Academia” with strong rhythmic bases, unheard of in their music until now, and the creation of elegant and subtle sound atmospheres on which the tenuous and evanescent warmth of the voice and the emotional whisper of the story of Eladio Santos.
All of this configured without shame of complacency. Removed once again from formal and conceptual complacency, Eladio y los Seres Queridos renew and strengthen their particular way of understanding popular and contemporary music. Moments of sparkling pop find their calm in others of poetic intimacy. Evocations of border and luminous fusion turn into semi-light with a jazz aroma. Modern songs of austere frame are followed by vibrant melodies wrapped in the dazzling cellophane of superb orchestrations.
The obvious sonic and literary references that the listener will detect in his journey through the 14 songs of “Academy” are not few or unknown. But just in case it were necessary, Eladio y Los Seres Queridos leave two reliable testimonies in the shape of versions. One of them, “Baixaron as fadiñas”, Emilio Cao –who joins this recording – included in his legendary Fonte do Araño in 1977. The other is “Pasan días”, which was included in the Pablo Milanés record to Cuban poets (1983).
All this and more is what “Academia” is: a record of precious architecture that quickly becomes absorbing. An album that, without putting an end to anything, does have a hint of probate, a kind of log of activity from which to continue to outline paths that lead them-and us- to the search for happiness- that which Eladio y los Seres Queridos confess to having felt in “Academia”.
