Taisen Francisco Martín

The double bass was the compass that led him to the blues, navigating the turbulent waters of punk, surf and rockabilly, always seeking out the roots of the music. He arrived in Barcelona in 2005 and drifted through various projects, but he did not settle permanently in the city until 2011, the year in which he began playing professionally with the harmonica player Fredy Garcia. Two years later, with Agustín Blesa, he put together Las Balas Perdidas, one of the most singular projects in Barcelona blues in recent years. With his instrument as a forceful tool of the trade and a sense of humour as his personal calling card, this double bassist gives himself up to the subtlety and the strength of the genre: “There is a certain melancholy implicit in the blues which, when combined with the seed of rock’n’roll, becomes, for me, irresistible”. Without abandoning his wilder side, which allows him to move through other styles of African American music, he has found in the blues the manifestation of his most intimate facet: “A place from which to express contradictory feelings, of perdition and frenzy”.