Josh Rouse
El Turista
Release Date: Mar 9, 2010
Genre(s): Rock, Alternative, Folk, Singer-Songwriter
Record label: Yep Roc
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Album Review: El Turista by Josh Rouse
Excellent, Based on 4 Critics
Based on rating 8.4/10
(Yet) Another side of Josh Rouse Expat singer/songwriter Josh Rouse is a musical chameleon, exploding into beautiful new aural shades with each record. His 2003 album, 1972, was a tribute to the AM pop and proto-disco sounds of his birth year. Two years later, he released Nashville, which explored a more contemporary fusion of folk rock and subtle electronic flourishes.
Based on rating 84%%
Little Dragon are placed in a bit of a conundrum with their fourth studio album Nabuma Rubberband. When the band first emerged in 2007 with their self-titled debut, the electronic music movement wasn’t yet filtered, funneled and repackaged as EDM. Nabuma finds them looking to expand by experimenting with various styles—from the bossa nova undertones of opener “Mirror” to the zippy electro-guitar licks of “Klapp Klapp.
Based on rating 8/10
Josh Rouse has never stayed in one place for very long, but El Turista -- his third album as a Spanish citizen -- suggests he isn’t leaving the Mediterranean anytime soon. “I’ll send you postcards, boys!,” he sings during “I Will Live on Islands,” one of the five songs to feature English lyrics. Roughly half of El Turista is performed in Spanish, and far more than that bears the country’s influence, from the strum of Rouse’s flamenco guitar to the relaxed, siesta-worthy pitch of his voice.
Based on rating 8/10
El Turista is an appropriate title for a Josh Rouse album, given the Nebraska-born singer’s penchant for moving around from one place to another. Yet Rouse’s music emphasizes the pleasures of settling as much as travel. Rouse himself has called a number of places home over the years, both in the USA and in Spain, where he relocated in 2005. The titles of his albums tell a large part of this dialectic between movement and stasis: Dressed Up Like Nebraska (1998), Home (2000), Nashville (2005), Country Mouse City House (2007).