Gizmo Varillas

El Dorado

Spiritual salvoes on Spaniard’s debut, assisted by a Beatle.

The sunbathed shimmer of Gizmo Varillas’ music suggests it’s arrived in the wrong season, but it’s actually perfectly timed, in light of the post-truth rise of the new US president. From Bilbao, Varillas has created a loose concept LP around the mythical El Dorado; the ‘Golden One’ who supposedly covered himself in gold dust and dived into a lake as an offering to restore peace to the world. Musically, it comes doused in Mediterranean duskiness, like a light-footed Manu Chao. Varillas operates almost single-handedly, playing guitar, flute, ukulele and percussion, but on No War taps none other than John Lennon (with Yoko Ono’s permission, rarely given), pertinently ruminating on the BBC in 1970: “Our society is run by insane people, for insane objectives, run by maniacs…”