Before Els Delai there is Barcelona. There, Domi formed the duo Rufino y Don Domingo —him on guitar, as Don Domingo—, a downtown project that did very well and ended up recording an album with Universal Vale Music Spain in 2008, at the Musicland studios in Madrid, with its music videos. When the duo dissolves, he founds the neighbourhood association Barrio Candela, and out of it comes Sobretaula Candela: a young, rowdy, energy-packed outfit, deep into classic rumba, with a demo of their own, Candelator.
And in that Barcelona happens what really shapes the style. Studying Peret. Discovering Ramonet, who invites the duo onto his show on Ràdio Ciutat Vella, where he talked about football and Catalan rumba. Meeting el Chacho. Sharing time with Antonio Peralta. Not records: people. Crossing paths with the fathers of Catalan rumba in the neighbourhoods where they lived out their lives, and receiving first-hand what they passed on as musicians and as people. That is where the purism comes from.
And then, around 2011, Domi returns to the Empordà. In Figueres he teams up with Eudald —his brother-in-law at the time— and gradually teaches him the basics of rumba. A pure, hard duo is born: real Catalan rumba, the urban kind, the one born in Barcelona in the late fifties. No flamenco flavouring. Purists.
The turning point comes with a tapas bar in Céret's market, La Chunga, and its owner, François Parramon, a figure loved and argued over with equal intensity, who becomes their patron. On market Saturdays, on that terrace, the duo tears it up. They sell records, half of Vallespir knows them, and gigs come from everywhere.
And at that magic spot the best thing happens: one afternoon a trombone and a trumpet from Vallespir climb up to play, improvising —David and Llorens Parayre. Nobody asked them to stay, but they stayed. The Feria de Céret, playing every day at all hours, has just become the band's training ground.
Over time the trumpet gives way to Jordi Salvatella's tenora, and the sound turns even more Catalan. Just when it was needed: north of the border there was a hunger for music sung in Catalan, and what existed sounded Frenchified or felt like solemn tradition, like the sardana. They arrive with an urban, festive sixties rhythm, sung in Catalan, in the thick of the independence movement. They become pioneers, almost an icon.
Meanwhile, songwriting breaks the purism. Not by strategy: when you write your own songs, the songs ask for ska, ask for horns, ask for everything you've listened to. The first album, Pas de por, Domi records entirely at home, in a home studio. Out of it comes El Burro Català, which across the border becomes a tube —a smash everyone requests— and behind it Les senyoretes. To play that record live, the bass joins: the duo stops being a duo.
In 2017 comes Alchímia, this time away from home, in real studios, with more instrumentation and the tenora fully on board. It's the album where the cobla influences truly enter the recording. And to play it live, the drums join. Growth happened like that, piece by piece, album by album.
From that time comes Xisku de Ceret, written by Domi and David, dedicated to François Parramon, the patron of La Chunga. A rumba with a ska feel that became a party anthem. François ended up leaving Céret —he lives in Brittany today— and the band still plays his song every time it returns to the village. The song stayed to live there even though he no longer does.
Then come the brakes, and they're worth telling. The first, from outside: around 2017 and 2018 the political moment breaks and splits, and being an icon starts to weigh. A spiritual brake. The second, from within: Domi no longer lives in Barcelona, and Catalan rumba feeds on the city. The songs that come to him are more serious, less festive. He stops composing and asks Eudald to take over. Out of that comes La Cabra Ska, with a hilarious video, which works very well live. Then Politics, with a quieter run. And Pony, by Domi, too electronic, which never managed to hold its own on stage.
And today Els Delai is a six-piece that only plays in full formation and on big stages: La Bressola's 50th anniversary, Sant Joan for the City of Perpignan, the Coblíssim, the Céret circuit. Domi puts it with a metaphor that fits like a glove: it's a classic car. A rounded project, with a huge amount of work and decisions behind it, that —until a new surge of creative energy arrives— is cared for, polished and kept through its inspections. It's treated for what it is: a jewel of one's own.
And something runs through the whole story, from the lyrics to the videos: a surreal streak, and the habit of doing things with next to nothing when there was no money, but always with a will for creative quality.