There is a quiet, deliberate magic to the way the Gutiérrez brothers craft music. On Los Ojos Del Cóndor, the Ecuadorian-Swiss duo of Alejandro and Estevan Gutiérrez (Hermanos Gutiérrez) offer another mesmerizing exercise in instrumental storytelling, trading the sun-baked, wide-open canyons of the American West for the lush rhythms and soaring peaks of South America. Produced once again by Dan Auerbach (of Black Keys fame) and released through Easy Eye Sound, the 10-track record acts as both a vivid physical landscape and an intimate, reflective internal compass.
From the moment opener "Canto Andino" sets its gentle, meditative groove, the album roots itself deeply in geography (as well as within the listener’s psyche, finding solace within the symmetry of the echoey instrumental interplay). The tandem guitar work remains as intricately intertwined as ever: one guitar laying down a rhythmic, steady foundation like footfalls on a winding mountain path, while the other glides overhead like the condor itself. The physical texture of the terrain is felt everywhere — in the steady, hypnotic pulse of "Tren Macho," the airy, kinetic strumming of "La Danza Del Viento," and the ancient grandeur evoked in "Ciudad Inca." The album never rushes to show off or scale its heights; instead, it moves with an unyielding, deliberate rhythm that honors the sheer scale of the Andes.
