Tango

The only album by Tanguito (José Alberto Iglesias) is a stripped-back, acoustic folk set by seeming accident, or impracticality, perhaps: initially planned to be a full-band set, with Tanguito backed by Argentinian rock band Manal, he never bothered turning up to the two days’ worth of studio sessions they’d booked. Instead, what we have here is Tanguito playing rudimentary but spirited acoustic guitar, with his crackling, roughly gorgeous voice taking centre stage. In its near-improvisatory spirit, its sense of capturing an artist in an almost distracted haze, it reminds, for some reason, of albums like Syd Barrett’s The Madcap Laughs, though the songs are less abstracted. A fragile soul, Tanguito would pass away in 1972, a few years after the sessions were completed; Tango was released the following year.