Nico Barberan - Away Blues EP (2024)

Nico Barberan hails originally from Chile, but he is currently based in Arizona, having previously spent time in Chicago. His musical interests are are as varied as the places he has lived. He has a bachelor’s degree in music and electric guitar from ARICIS University, Santiago do Chile, and a master’s degree in applied pedagogy in classical guitar from Northeastern Illinois University. He has played on an Afro-Latin album with the Chilean band, Shabakano; his 2019 debut solo album, Homneaje, combined rock and fusion in an all-instrumental affair; and he is a founding member of the Qiru Duet, a clarinet-guitar duo that has performed Latin American music across the USA as well as in Columbia, Mexico and Ireland.

Away Blues is closer to an EP than an album, comprising four vocal songs and two instrumentals, all based around Barberan’s very impressive guitar chops. Barberan wrote all six songs, played all guitars and provided all the vocals. He also produced the album, with mixing and mastering by Marcos Gomez. Able musical support is provided by Nico Letelier on keyboards, Pat Sanchez on bass and Gomez on drums.

Barberan is clearly a very impressive guitar player, with an imposing technical proficiency and his interest in a wide range of music is reflected in the music on the album. Away Blues kicks off with “Hey There Love!”, a heavy, riff-driven number that recalls early Deep Purple, both in the single note guitar riff that underpins each verse, but also the glorious Hammond organ of Letelier. This leads into the upbeat shuffle of “Red Shoes” with some clever chording and unexpected, almost discordant, changes to the time signature. The title track is a near six-minute slow blues instrumental that gives Barberan plenty of space to stretch out and demonstrate his instrumental prowess.

“Tell Me What Is Love” again features a blues-rock single note guitar riff that recalls something that Cream might have enjoyed playing, although Barberan slips in a few more notes from outside the traditional pentatonic major and minor scales than one would expect to hear from Clapton. By contrast, “Walking With The Stars” is a lush, dreamy track that recalls the intellectual structures of the Alan Parsons Band, perhaps with a hint of Pink Floyd.

The closing number, the instrumental “AZ Blues” starts out with gently strummed acoustic guitars before Barberan’s thick, overdriven electric guitar fires off. Again there are hints of Pink Floyd, but without David Gilmour’s minimalist restraint.

Away Blues is an unabashed celebration of Barberan’s incendiary guitar playing and, if your tastes lean towards that late 60s-early 70s era of guitar-led, genre-mashing, virtuosic experimentation then you will find a lot to enjoy here.