I Went To See A Band...

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Then, a couple of weeks later, on a beautiful warm night in Rosario, under a full moon, in the outdoor amphitheater at the Centro Cultural in Parque de Espanå, we saw Liliana Herreo play.
Ships glided by in the river behind her, silent behomoths.
A bit older than Melero (she is 76), she was quite political in her youth, and was arrested by the Military in the 70s.
In the 80s, she began to take music more seriously, and recorded two albums produced by Fito Paez, which they dubbed “supermodern folklore”. She also did cover versions of many other musicians songs, from Charly to Mercedes Sosa.
She is a vocalist who lives for a powerful and romantic lyric, for poetry and politics and love, and who tries to embody the living tradition of argentine folk and popular music.
She is generous and emotional and engaging, and she is in many ways the opposite of Melero.
She usually plays these days with an acoustic guitarist, and she can get the best to play with her, in this case Pedro Rossi, who is really good, and has quite a good singing voice as well.
She embodies the wise crone, the elder who paid attention to history, and she does it with grace and intimacy.
Here is a video from a few years ago, which, format-wise, is very similar to the show we saw- educated interplay with a guitarist, jokes, stories,history, commentary, and lots of singing.

 

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I am generally more interested in the future than in the past.
I dont tend to listen to a lot of classical music.
I was lucky enough to be exposed to a lot of what they called, at the time, New Music, in the late 70s, which was basically classicly trained musicians composing music that wasnt reminescent of 200 year old european composers.
Thanks to a musician and curator named David Mahler, at and/or in Seattle, I got to see Meredith Monk,Charlamaigne Palestine, Blue Gene Tyranny, Stuart Dempster, Laurie Anderson, and various other composers in intimate live settings.
After that, I found Steve Reich and Phillip Glass, early work by JohnCale, Arthur Russell, Julius Eastman, and many more.
50 years later, I seem to be listening to a lot of what I would call post-classical cello, usually by women, which seems to be a thing these days.
I am quite fond of recent recordings by Lorie Goldston, Lucinda Chua, and Mabbi Fratti, who are from the US, UK, and Mexico, lately.
Here in Buenos Aires, I keep seeing the Serbian/Argentine Karmen Rencar, also a cellist. She plays in Cuarteto Divergente, with Luis Teran, and I have seen her in the string section with several other musicians in larger concerts.
She does a lot of studio work, plays with a variety of groups, and appears in a variety of contexts.
In November, we were lucky enough to see her play in her cello duo, Kapai Duo, at SuenaWashington, which is a secret gem here.
Its a private home, with a host and owner who is a musician and curator of music, a record label owner, and cook, who opens his home once in a while to a small audience, usually no more than 50, for amazing nights of music. Its hard to find, doesnt advertise, and you have to ask to attend. Its friendly and intimate and often you sit on the living room floor, after dining on tacos in his beautiful yard.

Karmen Rencar and Pablo De Nucci are both classically trained versatile musicians, but the music they play together is special.
No sheet music, its all either memorized or improvised, its eclectic and wonderful.
There are parts that are classical, parts that are jazz, parts that are experimental, but its all joyful and fun to watch.
I cant find any footage of the two of them except on instagram, so if you are interested, go to Kapai Duo on Instagram.
But here is an earlier collaboration she did with a couple of other great musicians,covering a Charly Garcia song.
I would recommend seeing her in any venue, she is always great.

 

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Here is a piece written by the dueno of Suena Washington, who is playing piano, with Rencar on Cello.

 

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Things happen in Buenos Aires that I cant imagine happening in other cities- at least not in the generous and friendly way they do here.
I frequently stumble on magic places.
We follow a variety of musicians, and when they play, we make an effort to go.
Often in Argentina a musician will play with a wide variety of other musicians, bands, events, solo outings, and in many different styles.
There is frequent cross-pollination across genres that are siloed in most other places, but here, its one big community.
We always try to see Carola Velaschi when we can, sheis a wild musician who plays a lot of instruments, and is known for her drumming.
She is recently returned from touring Europe with one of her other projects, the band Blanca Teta, which is feminist postpunk explosions of noise.
So some weeks ago, we bought tickets,for a show she was doing at Galpon B, in San Cristobal.
Showing up that night, we realized it was a lot more than just Carola- it turns out it was a kind of introduction to Juana Molina's record label, Sonamos, which she is running with her manager/producer Mario Agustín de Jesús González.
They have only put out a few records, but one of them is Carola's recent album, Carolo.
The night began with Juana Dj-ing vinyl records from her collection-mostly late 60s obscurities that were happy and danceable.
Then her multitalented drummer, Diego Lopez De Arcuate, revived a band from 7 years ago, Mos Rot, for a set that had him singing, playing guitar, and drumming up a storm with his partner in crime Sebastian Cruzvar. A mix of samples and electronic wanderings with real instruments expertly played.
A band called Simple, which had been formed by Nacho Camueira and Mario Gonzalez 20 years ago, with Gonzalez sitting in on drums- he hasnt been regularly playing with them for a long time.
VictoriaBrion, from Uruguay, on solo Piano.
Another set by DJ Juana.
And finally, Carola, playing live drums and singing to backing tracks she recorded on other instruments. Her energy is quite large and ferocious.
It was an all star variety show, spanning decades and a wide range of music, a family reunion, a night with friends, whether you knew them or not.
All of the musicians were sitting at tables like normal people if they were not playing, eating pizza and drinking beer or wine. Obviously, none of them were Taylor Swift, but its still amazingly egalatarian.
Galpon B has music several days a week, all kinds of bands, its cheap, the food is pretty good, andits a very chill and porteno kind of place.

Here is a configuration we did NOT see, but I wish I had- Carola, with Juana, and Lucy Patane on Guitar.

 

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This is more like what Carola sounded like when we saw her this time. And yes, she has her own chainsaw, but I think she has different ideas about what to use it on than some other people we know.

 

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Victoria Brion, piano and voice.

 

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In December I did go see Clan Caiman and Axel Krieger play live at Artlab Pro, which is on Rosetti, near Dorrego.
It was great. I have written a lot about both, so you can see what I think in past posts.
Axel is going to be playing a series of shows in February at Congo Club in Palermo.
The 14th, 21st, and 28th.
Axel always puts on a good show, the club is small enough that there isnt a bad seat, and its easy to get to.

Compra tus entradas para ONGAKU SESSIONS

tickets.congoclubcultural.com.ar

 

[Ries]

I have been a fan of the "electronic tango" style of music for over 15 years now.
This is a style that was originated in the late 90s, early 2000s, and its basically tango music with a very light frosting of modern instrumentation.
I have traditional friends who swear its heresy, but most of those only like music from 1930 to 1960.
In reality, most of these bands are 90% acoustic instruments, with a tiny bit of synthesizer or backing tracks.
I bought most of the early albums many years ago, and have seen many of them live over the years.
Coming up in a couple of weeks is the annual Festival Electrotango.
It features several of the seminal bands of this movement, who are quite good.
I particularly like Carlos Libedinsky and his band Narcotango, but Otra Aires and Tanghetto are also good.
3 nights, in San Telmo. There will be dancing, both participatory and professional, djs,live bands, and more.
An all ages crowd that tends towards over 40, I have not been to this particular venue, but these festivals in the past are quite friendly and fun.

Unfortunately, the band I think is the best in this category, Gotan Project, was always album oriented and played live very little, with an everchanging cast of players. I think their albums are great, although less pure tango than these bands.

here is a video narcotango some years ago. You can see its hardly radical electronic music.

FestivalElectrotango – FestivalElectrotangoBuenosAires

www.festivalelectrotango.com

 

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I have been going to Club Niceto for at least 15 years.
Its a typical rock club the world around. Painted black, cheap beer and a sticky floor.
its capacity is 1500 people, which means its big enough to accomodate a wide range of medium popular local and international bands, but still much nicer to get close and really see the band, as opposed to say, Movistar Arena or Technopolis.
I was lucky enough to arrive in Argentina at the tail end of the ZZK era, which was a loose cooperative and record label in the mid oughts that was a melange of andean folk, cumbia, and electronic music.
It was a reaction against the constant mimicry of anglo/american english language mainstream rock which has been the core of Rock Nacional since the 60s, and it included a lot more women, as well as acknowledging a wide argentine heritage that included gurani and mapuche and andean musics.
One of the performers I have seeen many times since then, including at Niceto several times, was Pedro Canales, aka Chancha Via Circuito.
His early work, such as his excellent 2008 album Rodante, was more electronic cumbia, but as he got older, he got more interested in indigenous south american musics and instruments, blending them with his electronic and dj skills. He scored a big coup when one of his remixes was featured in Breaking Bad, and he is known in both North and South americas as a remixer, producer, and collaborator with a wide range of musicians. Here is the Breaking Bad remix.

As such, he has been collaborating with Canadian/columbian musician Lido Pimienta for a decade or more.

So, naturally, I was excited to hear they would be playing together at Niceto in January, and I bought tickets right away.
I was not dissapointed.
The show opened with Pimienta's husband, the multitalented Nicaraguan/Canadian percussionist Brandon Baldivia, who goes by the stage name Mas Aya (which means "more over there", and can be interpreted in a lot of ways).
Mas opened with the stage covered with an enormous expansive drum kit, featuring a standard rock kit, but much much more, including handmade drums, gongs, chimes, and all kinds of percussion, improvised and professional.
He played different instruments with each foot and one hand, while often playing wooden flutes with the other hand.
It sounded like there was a five piece band up there- he is a whirlwind of sound. He had recorded tracks, of him playing other instruments, as the base of various songs, and his vocals and processed flute was overlaid over it all.
He admits to being heavily influenced by sixties era Pharoah Sanders, and there certainly was a layer of that in his music, but he has been a core of many different bands in the Toronto scene since at least 2010, and he often played in as many as five bands at a time, so his range of styles is immense.
At one point Pimienta came out, in her street clothes, and vamped some improvised vocals over one of his jams.
He, alone was worth coming to see.
Here is one of his songs- not much on youtube, you really need to listen to him on bandcamp, or, I suppose, spotify.

 

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Next, Chancha came out and played a DJ set. Chancha has been a DJ for a long time, and his particular blend of cumbia and dance music is easy to groove to, unusual in its depth of sources, and often punctuated by him playing instruments live along with the beats.
He has been teaching mixing and dj-ing for quite some time, and a lot of people have been inspired to actually make music by his very open and non-competitive attitudes of sharing.
here he is playing a similar set a year ago. He is great live, and Niceto was close to full- over a thousand people shaking their tailfeathers.