IMPROBABLE PEOPLE

IMPROBABLE PEOPLE

Recording a CD at 50... improbable

Listening to it on the radio... very improbable

Seeing it in magazines... more than improbable

Presenting it live... the most improbable thing of all!

Today, after almost 40 years, all this has become possible for Improbable People

Saying that Improbable People is a new group is like saying that the world is flat, that rain isn't wet, or that grass is blue. The world is round. Rain is wet. Grass is green. Román Villar and José Enrique Fernández have been making music for the past 40 years but it was only recently that they decided to record some songs and find a name for the band: Improbable People.

Their friendship dates back to primary school, when for José Enrique and Román there were only two things worth the bother: playing soccer and learning music. And what about math? Naahh. Who cared about that? As long as they could listen to The Beatles, Simon & Garfunkel, and The Byrds, the world could break apart for all they cared.

Everything started that way. José Enrique playing Mozart at 11 and Román playing covers with a group called The 1968 Students Revolution. Good mix, isn't it? That's why they've played together ever since.

Very quickly, they realized what the other was good at: José Enrique could easily learn the lyrics of songs they liked, knew about harmony, and sang well; Román had already developed good guitar skills and was able to memorize songs after one listening. Unquestionably, there was a future here: when they were 14, Orfeón (then a major record label in Mexico) offered them their first recording contract, which, oh surprise, they turned down as big talents do!

Later on, the hippie era vanished, punk rock arrived, and Román and José Enrique carried on making music as usual: they never wrote their songs down because they hated notating music, and used happy accidents that happened while playing as the basis for new songs. Many of those songs, recorded on cassettes, survive to this day. Thus, Román and José Enrique decided to blow the dust off some of them and see if they had endured the passage of time.

They have. The result of all those years of making music just for the sake of it is a beautiful indie folk CD called By Fits and Starts, an album made with great care, without concessions or conditions, but with the same attitude José Enrique and Román had grown up with. And with the help of relatives and old and new friends!

By asking favors, using free timeslots generously provided by Estudio 19, and inviting other musicians to join the project, they recorded By Fits and Starts in a two-year period. Improbable People had to take advantage of every free chance they had to record bits of a song and then wait, sometimes for a month, for another free timeslot to record the bass guitar or whatever was next or missing to make decades of experience and work a reality. And best of all, without having to compromise the style they had developed since they were young. The disarming mix of cheekiness and innocence is preserved on By Fits and Starts, proof that it's never too late to fulfill your dreams and that being faithful to your ideals gets you the best results.

Get All Your Troubles, the first single, is a sweet, pop-minded song reminiscent of Eliot Smith or The High Lamas in that it quickly enfolds you with a smooth melody. The beauty of songs like Third Floor, 'Twas Only Me, and In the Early Hours, will easily captivate you.