Joan Garriga
Musician and songwriter
Founder of Dusminguet and frontman of La Troba Kung-Fú, Joan Garriga is a key figure for understanding the evolution of 21st-century popular music made in Catalonia. Born in La Garriga (1972), he grew up at a time when dance orchestras helped people reclaim the streets and squares, make the party go with a swing, and bring back joy after years of silence and darkness. This popular atmosphere, mixing music and generations, has marked his musical career.
With Dusminguet (1995-2004), Garriga became a pioneer of crossover music and debuted as an accordionist. He got together with Marià Roch to form La Troba Kung-Fú and make a critically acclaimed first album, Clavell Morenet (2006). This was followed by another two discs, A la panxa del bou (2010) and Santalegria (2013). In 2016, he started to compose and play rúmbia (a local Vallès mixture of rumba and cumbia) with El Mariatxi Galàctic, with whom he has collaborated on theatre shows by the company Perla 29. These include the adaptation of Federico García Lorca’s tragedy, Bodas de sangre, winner of the Critic’s Award for the Best Original and Adapted Music 2018, and La bona persona de Sezúan (2019).
After the premiere in Paris of 28 i mig (2022), Oriol Broggi’s most recent theatrical production, he resumed his solo debut tour, El bany i el plany. Recorded between 2019 and 2020 and mixed in lockdown, El bany i el plany is an exciting journey to all the worlds that fit into Joan Garriga’s accordion: the Mediterranean of the havanera and raï, the Latin Caribbean, and the Jamaica of reggae and dub, not forgetting the north of Mexico that inspired his band. The album won the Enderrock Critics’ Prize for the Best Folk Album 2020.
Update: 21 September 2022