Cheltenham Racecourse

Gizmo Varillas

Big Top, Friday 2018

Gizmo Varillas

Music offers a powerful remedy for the distressing headlines piling up these days, acknowledges mankind’s darker sides, and seeks to find light therein. It’s a quality that might be considered as rare as it is indispensable.

I’m a hopeless romantic, VARILLAS concedes happily, an optimist, for sure If I only listened to the news, I'd only have a distorted version of reality. I know, though, that there’s a world out there full of good people. This sanguine approach to life is charmingly reflected in the title to his second album, and permeates many of its songs, too. Such sentiments aren’t, however, restricted to his lyrics, though these radiate an unusual positivity: His convictions are evident in the mood of his music, too, which calls upon the warm sounds of his roots, as well as more widespread musical sources, and employs a vast armoury of exotic instruments to create an enviably, appealingly bittersweet – but still rarely less than effervescent – sound.

Gizmo Varillas - Losing You
Gizmo Varillas - Losing You