After a long summer of recording and studio work, La Bandina’s debut album Pa Bail.lar! (For the dancing!) hits the streets to much rejoicing of the wide following won over by the band in their live performances. The CD has a deeply traditional Asturian sound though displaying an equally strong personality of the band’s own, owing surely to the knack of the four well known musicians: Santi Caleya (pipes, sax and whistles), Merce Santos (hurdy-gurdy), Octavio Trapiella (diatonic accordions) and David Varela (Asturian field drum, bass drumand and bodhran. The bulk of the work comprises of Asturian melodies handled in such a way as to preserve the traditional essence, with uncomplicated but very interesting arrangements. Another outstanding feature is the wide variety of rhythms: “dances”, muñeres, polcas, “waltzites”…, and a great number of “xotas,” a rhythm often described as awkward to fit into the more modern folk bands’ styles, yet swiftly and elegantly adapted by La Bandina. Pa Bail.lar! is in all one of the most surprising attempts to regain an underexplored trend in Asturian folk music and a powerful assertion of the band’s belief in the possibility of offering a purer vision of Asturian traditional music in a highly modern and attractive presentation.