Written and composed from March to May 2020, RUIBAL, is the new installment by
Javier Ruibal. In CD-Book format, it contains 12 unpublished songs -plus “INTEMPERIE”-
The Goya Awarded as “Best Original song 2020” of the homonymous film by Benito
Zambrano. In addition, the songs are accompanied by 13 unpublished stories and 13
original watercolors by Sonia Alonso, one for each song.
The author intends to return to the album the emotional value it always had, hence
this Book-album proposal, so that it once again becomes a precious object in the hands
of those who receive it.
Very surprising in form, title and content, all the songs reflect a remarkable evolution
from previous albums. Different themes and approaches, in which there is no lack of
emotion and humor, areas widely explored by Javier Ruibal.
Titles such as "Astronomy", "Quantum Physics", "Room of Absentees", "Music in
Vein"... give an idea of the content, which goes far beyond the mere enunciation of
each song. Ruibal has deepened in a literature where new concepts are combined with
poetic modes of great depth. His eagerness to offer beauty and sobriety continue in
the tone of excellence to which he has accustomed us since his first album. As far as
music is concerned, he offers us a lot and very interesting. From his heterodoxy of
Andalusian and universal composer, as it is already a tradition in his works, he achieves
again spaces of meeting between all the planetary music.
Those values that gave him the National Award for Actual Music in 2017 are widely
endorsed in this album where he has completely poured his capacity of concentration
and his demonstrated evocative ability.
There is a lot of love and a lot of humor in this work coming out of the hardest months
of confinement in which, far from falling into the predictable sadness and melancholy,
it has been focused on a very complete work, full of maturity and freshness. It is a
healing balm for any listener in this crucial moment of surviving of the human being.
Parables about sanity as a "Room of Absentees"; labyrinthine exercises, almost tongue
twisters, and full of humor as "Quantum Physics", "I Am the One who Sang to You" or
"Music in vein"; ballads of great beauty such as "Astronomy"; claims about our African
origin, "I Am African"; a waste of the humor from Cadiz in "Musa" or in the bulerias
"Only the Dose Makes the Poison", have their culmination in two beautiful songs, two
reflections about the brutal isolation that we have suffered while the Internet has
prevent us from falling, to a certain extent, into paranoid states: "Love on the Net" and
" Masked Ball".