Martin Lloyd Howard has engineered a peculiar but entirely hypnotic time-slip on his new solo single, “Hidden Andalucia”. Here is a piece of acoustic fingerstyle that defies basic gravity, built upon delicately plucked arpeggios that float above a soft, rhythmic bassline.
As a classically trained English guitarist, Howard knows exactly how to manipulate the negative space between notes. He anchors the outer edges of this instrumental release in the moody, courtly elegance of Elizabethan lutenist and composer John Dowland. You hear it clearly in the deliberate pacing, with gently resonant single-note phrases hanging in the air and decaying naturally at their own speed.
But the middle section? That is where the humidity kicks in.
Halfway through its quiet, reflective melancholy, the track effortlessly wanders into bright flamenco territory. The subtlety here is the actual triumph. There is no forced collision of genres; instead, subtle pitch slides begin to bend under a heavier sun, making absolute emotional sense of the stylistic shift. It is a beautifully coherent blend of 16th-century restraint and Spanish heat.
When the final tone ultimately fades, a peaceful, intimate solitude settles over the room. Do wood and wire actually possess the architectural memory to walk us through centuries?
