Presidente is the solo project of Heberto Añez Novoa, a Venezuelan artist whose new single and pastel campaign has grabbed our full attention. "La Sociedad (de la tierra plana)" is at once minimal and challenging. Añez works with the most palatable of elements: slinky synths and 80’s radio guitar with a pleading vocal delivery to concoct something completely unique and beguiling to the end. The track is taken from the upcoming Ilustre Ventanal de Estrategias, an eight-track release due next month. Noting this, it’s worth mentioning how the short format release has become a mark of confidence in music (especially in our ibero-sphere). One that acknowledges a clear vision in an easily distracted age. With "La Sociedad”, Presidente has placed us en route to his own vision, and we can’t wait to see it.
Sheep begins with a looped dial tone coming from another parallel dimension. A barnyard cacophony of well, sheep, urban grunts and uhhs, then kicks into (fascinating) short circuiting overdrive—horns, a train? A woman moaning, throbbing and we're back where the S&M runway of Xen left off. A bathhouse, club thumps, dark elevators, a dial tone that can’t be reached. An Eastern flute calls inwards, a digital ping, a digital pong—walls transforming, we're back on the elevator. A woman sings in a language nearly obliterated by conquest, this mélange hints at Chancha Via Circuito, if Chancha were purging his electronic demons on ayahuasca. Maddening anxiety, phosphorescent, the clacking percussion of what sounds like an automatic handgun, the trumpet of a beast signals this transition, sloshing elephants thru an oasis amidst arid lands and a contaminated sunset in what could be Tokyo or Mexico City (really any giant metropolis where you’re bobbing your head right now) dodging traffic, checking your social network for your next high. That trumpet again—mad. The traces of Arca's haunted piano, obliterated into the nebula of his signature sound continuum. For the grand finale, we pray. A chorus of haunting tragedy unfolds, and post modern cathedrals collapse in the darkness of the second decade of our young century.
While no one’s going to deny that Arca’s solo output so far -- the collection of three excellent EP’s which earned him the #2 spot in our 2012 Albums of the Year countdown, plus a mixtape that had its own film played at MOMA last year -- should be enough merit to justify the attention the Venezuelan producer has been enjoying lately, there will be few out there arguing against the fact that it’s his collaborations with Kanye West and FKA Twigs that gave him his biggest moment on the spotlight yet. Or at least, his more accessible. That could all change very soon as excitement seems to be everywhere for Arca’s upcoming debut album (called Xen, and to be released via Mute on November 3). The increase in attention that Arca’s material has been gathering isn't really due to an improvement or transition in his production (the new track could fit in either Barón Libre or &&&&& and actually not even stand out), but rather to the fact that, thanks to Yeezy and Twigs, he’s no longer one of the best kept secrets in off-kilter electronic music. His aesthetic might be even less-inviting than before: the cover art finds new levels for the post-human imagery of Jesse Kanda, and the music is much more focused on mood rather than movement, although the breakbeat might finally earn the producer a spot on a few dancefloors. But if there’s anything that “Thievery” makes clear, it’s just how much Arca’s prints are all over the work of his recent collaborators: the screechy synths could make for a beat for Twigs to sing over, and with the grim piano melody, also carries all the chagrin and fuzziness that made Yeezus such a distinctively produced rap record. For most of these last couple of years, the whole world has been listening to Arca via the footprints he’s left in his collaborators output. But with Xen the whole world is finally going to be listening to what Arca can do on his own. It’s his chance to take the spotlight for himself.
&&&&&, Arca Hippos In Tanks, Venezuela Rating: 83 by Carlos Reyes
Pierre Lestruhaut was the first critic to write a proper album review for Arca. Within hours of its publication, the mastermind behind it (Alejandro Ghersi, formerly known around these parts as Nuuro) reached out to us hoping we could adjust our review for Baron Libre. The Venezuelan producer explained that he envisioned this project as something coming out of a black canvas, hoping to pull off an anonymous contour a la Burial. To which we agreed (with very little enthusiasm) to remove his name (and a whole introductory paragraph) from the review. Such request seems silly now. Little did Ghersi know that just one year later, his name would appear on every publication out there as he became exposed to world acknowledgment as one of the producers of Yeezus, the most mystifying album by Kanye West.
Since we never really got to properly introduce Ghersi’s incarnation as Arca, we might as well do so now. Despite earning a glorious emancipation with The Reddest Ruby, Nuuro never seemed to escape the description of being a prodigy producer. I’m sure I’m not the only that still carries “Safe Safe Safe” and “256 MB of Love” on my ipod. The idea of letting them go doesn’t sit well with me. But it’s only a transitory feeling. Because whenever I find myself trapped in the world of Arca, there really isn’t any other music I’d rather be listening to. Ghersi got bold and serious with Arca. And as the very brave Lestruhaut pointed out on his second time reviewing him (Stretch 2), Arca also became a very difficult act to articulate about. Perhaps I’m taking the easy route to approach his music, but dissecting an artist’s past, and making good terms with it, makes the journalistic duty less intimidating.
Much like reviewing Baron Libre and the two volumes of Stretch, Arca’s sole release this year is a challenge. Conceptually, &&&&& could be read as either Arca’s most selective release yet, or as its less official work yet. Considering he had three releases last year, we could make the case this is his most collected reference yet. In the other hand, this one has been structured as a mixtape, and thus, it doesn’t carry the essential assertion of an official release. Whichever way it was conceived, &&&& is far from a novelty. From the get-go, it’s best to make peace with the mixtape's dense inscrutability. Ghersi’s experimental endeavors here are interchangeably exciting, maddening, perverse, and terrifying.
The fact that the mixtape isn’t fragmented by individual tracks makes it hard to pinpoint to precise hotspots, and that actually makes things exciting. Of course, there are defined choices made by Ghersi that stand out: the whimsical fairies on minute four, the unconsoling piano on minute twelve, the terrifying howl on minute seventeen, and the verbalization of a post-everything society at the twenty-one minute mark. At 25min. long, &&&& is ever-peeling but not superfluous. There’s an emotional restraint/awakening in its genetics that resonates well with the human condition. Like its artwork, &&&&& is cacophonic, broken and grotesque. Arca provokes and dislocates, but also provides shelter under his umbrella. It’s like imagining Werner Herzog and David Lynch sharing a seesaw –like taking a peek into a future that’s already here.
Mar Muerto, Cancioneira YoConVoz/Entorno Domestico, Venezuela Rating: 74 by Sam Rodgers
This is Linda "Cancioneira" Sjöquist's 'debut' LP (via YoConVoz)– which can also be an EP (via Entorno Domestico) – which isn't really a debut – as we have known her as ...al cruzar al calle until now (yes, the same voice behind Best-of-the-Year selections "Asuntos Internos," and "Romanticismo Ultravioleta"). This is the only confusion you should suffer at her guitar-plucking hands, as she continues the straight forward, folksy pop of the Venezuelan's former incarnation.
Mar Muerto floats above and is engulfed by a sonic seascape, both providing background ambience and influencing minor instrumentation: a blast of horns, clam castanets, siren calls. The LP, at only twenty-two minutes long, aims to capture moments on the beach, and at sea, with rain disturbing sleep, and wind whipping hair into the singer's mouth. The mood is Scandinavian: grey, cold, isolating; the protagonist feels hollow, dreamy, undone. Sometimes Sjöquist's voice returns in gusts, then bounces around the vast empty; and then, pulling focus, we're inside an echo chamber, and aware of the sheltered recording studio. It's this voice that at once draws you in and shoves you away that will garner Cancioneira with a cult following, or leave a listener isolated. The songs contain indelible melodies, but most have butterfly lifespans of around two minutes, fluttering past before dying rather abruptly. These are quick chapters in the LP's novella tone; it's easy to miss moments of transcendental beauty, and remember only the gentle guitar chords and slightly off-key vocals. The latter adds to the sea(love)sick quality of proceedings.
At the end of opener, "Labios Motores," an emulation of fog horns calls attention to the world Mar Muerto inhabits. It's a damp one: reminiscent of that of Finnish band Paavoharju – almost of another time/reality. The warmth of the album is not instantly accessible, but there are silver and gold linings that flicker in Sjöquist's compositions like a wistful jasmine garnish on "Quien te viera" and an angel's chorus on "Ausencia." As a whole, the LP is a collection of shells picked for aesthetics and similarity. Not that the songs sound the same or lack melodic depth, but they are pieces of a cohesive idea/mood board. Its brevity can be disarming, and sometimes off-putting: the lightness of musical flourishes can caress a listener, but can also evade them completely. Mar Muerto is a piece of driftwood, hard to cling on to, and easy to drift from. It's not a perfect album, but what it lacks in sonic heft, it makes up for in its relatable vulnerability.
Crónica, Roy Valentín Entorno Doméstico, Venezuela Rating: 72 by Souad Martin-Saoudi
Three years after the premature death of Elaine, IL Gimón hasn't ceased developing his sound. As a matter of fact, the musician from Caracas now going by Roy Valentín released his first solo album (the anticipated follow up to his intriguing EP “Música/Corazón”) last month on Venezuelan label, Entorno Doméstico. Crónica, which was produced, mixed and mastered by Heberto Áñez Novoa (musician for Tlx/Presidente and founder of Entorno Doméstico), is the result of eight months of studio work dotted by collaborations with Luis Ángel Martínez (Piyama Party/Los Mundos), Xavier Nadal (Grushenka/Creamy Creature), Andrés Morillo (Tlx), and our own Cheky Bertho (Algodón Egipcio/Jóvenes y Sexys). There is something so complex and dense in this collection of nine gritty songs, a mixture of raw music and vocal performances that are just as raw, but integrated with rather sophisticated arrangements where every detail is important.
With its metronome-like percussion, “Intro” shrewdly stresses that a crónica is primarily the writing of time. The opener, all in gradation, shades into “Uno,” a potent lo-fi track that announces that guitars shall not be the only ones in the forefront. In fact, Añez Novoa, who serves as the drummer on all of the songs, bears such ardor, it gives the impression that percussion acts as the central thread to Roy Valentín’s tale of ordinary life. Yet we soon realize each beating is the countercoup of sharp riffs. Gimón’s voice feels lost in a mass of sound generated by the ongoing dialogue between strings and drums. Then on “No Sé,” an acidulated rock track that manages to conserve a very intimate atmosphere through the vortexes of distortion, Valentín becomes both prosaic and ethereal. The instrumental “El Sol” transforms the intimate into something far more tenebrous, allowing for “GmFm” to arise. This free adaptation of Bauhaus’ “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” released back in July as part of a two-track EP, is the dramatic drop this LP needed.
Clocking in at 31 minutes, Crónica breezes through without knowing, which is a testament to how the compositions, all tightly stitched together, hold up well, making repeated listens more than likely, but also to the presence of some linearity. Whether it's a punk inflicted garage track (“Esta Vez”), a ballad-like tune loaded with layered guitars (“Ya No Importa”), or a rock revivalist lament (“No Se Parece A Mí”), Gimón’s smooth/raspy vocals rarely fluctuate from a nonchalant sigh, indicating that the temporal complexities of everyday experiences are better recounted by notes than by words. Such is the case with the mystifying instrumental “HCTWJ.” The eight and a half-minute percussion-less psych rock trip reveals how Roy Valentín can crystallize the fragments of everyday life and social complexity of the city in reverb and layers. The Caraqueño has found a sonic niche that’s as much comfortable for him as it is enjoyable for the listener. You just wish the same sense of narrative found in his instrumentals was reflected in his vocals.
Mala, Devendra Banhart Nonesuch Records, USA Rating: 79 by Carlos Reyes
The white savior complex is far from being a popular topic of discussion on Latin music forums, but when hipsters get together, it seems like no one is indifferent to the subject. “I am Venezuelan. Do I represent Venezuelans? I don’t know…I can barely represent myself.” Although Devendra Banhart carries Venezuelan blood and lived his formative years in that country, the general perception (at least from those in Latin America) is that he is still an outsider (some people are still resistant to the idea of Manu Chao being one of us, and others doubt of Ry Cooder's intentions). It’s a conformist, unfair, and anti-integrationist reading of an artist who clearly carries his identity on his sleeve.
Banhart isn’t being accused of a complete cultural appropriation, but is indicted for contributing to the exoticism of cultures (the fact that he also happens to symbolize Los Angeles’ boiling-pot society adds to the fire). When you hear the name Carmensita, does the image of Natalie Portman playing a Bollywood princess come to mind? While the allegations make up for a rich cultural debate, it’s easy to dismiss such opinions by simply listening to his records. Banhart is far from a gimmick. Mala, his eighth studio album is so thematically deep and sonically enduring to distill any skepticism. Sounding ambrosial in barebone acoustics (“Daniel”) or plainly twee in strummed melodies (“Your Fine Petting Duck”), Mala feels like the work of an experienced artist who has acquired cosmopolitanism through the arts.
By now we’ve come to expect Banhart singing in Spanish at least on one track of his albums. And they usually turn eventful. Such is the case here with the lovely “Mi Negrita.” It’s an unconscious habit, but Banhart always puts on his crooner voice whenever he sings in Spanish. It’s not a pose, it’s a loving way to show respect to his identity, an identity he can grasp and contribute to through either bolero or Americana. The song is also a great companion to Banhart’s recent collaborations with Natalia Lafourcade and Adanowsky. You can’t say the man isn’t trying to get more involved with our soundscape. Mala might not be Banhart’s strongest hour, but it’s easily his most respected work yet. He’s no longer filling the freak folk quota at your local artwalk or the young man putting a magnifying lense to his roots. When Banhart sings “you’re a young man on a dancefloor,” it all becomes clear—Mala is disambiguated and beyond earnest.
Lápidas y cocoteros, Violeta Vil Discoteca Océano, Spain/Venezuela Rating: 87 by Pierre Lestruhaut
Perhaps one of the most intriguing untold stories about the CF headquarters (Really? There is such a thing?), is the fact that for the last couple of years Violeta Vil was devoid of any skeptics. Our best songs of 2011 list won't tell you so, as standout tracks “Amish” and “Toronjil” both shined in our Top 40, yet for some of us it felt like there was still something missing in them. Almost two years after hearing the initial homemade recordings of VV, we’ve got to see what their songs finally sound like in their finished professionally-recorded incarnation, and as the rating at the left of this text will tell you, this time I have absolutely fallen for VV. Lápidas y cocoteros is not only a vast improvement from their Demo (I), but downright one of the best Latin records of the year.
Previously defining themselves as a tropical goth band (gravestones and coconuts... duh) - something that very rightfully pointed at how they elegantly played with the contradictions of crafting moods that elicit both the exuberance of tropicalism and the eeriness of goth rock - now teaming up with Pegasvs’ Sergío Pérez García has allowed them to outline instead how much melodic substance they’ve gained from that. Although pretty much everything that needs to be said about “Amish,”“Toronjil,” and “Lápidas y cocoteros” has already been said, it’s useful to point out just how much the production has raised the value on some of these tracks. “Amish” retains all of its mournful storytelling, sonically turning up their bliss levels and emphasizing on the whisper-in-your-ear vocals; while “Toronjil” is a more impassioned beast, adding intensity to its tale of violently disturbed communion.
As a whole Lápidas y cocoteros is an assuredly laconic album, yet devoid of any fillers, it feels not only extremely substantial, but also hectically consuming in the way I’ve found myself addicted to a different song every day since I first listened to it. The pursuit of beauty through repetition and distortion will inevitably have me doing some very obvious and unnecessary comparisons with bands like Cocteau Twins, My Bloody Valentine, Deerhunter and Animal Collective (as if nothing happened before 1988). And even if they do pull some ravishingly charming shit with guitar pedals and synths in “Tormentas (sonrisas)” and “Confitura”, the most interesting piece the band has created thus far is a cover of Violeta Parra’s “La pericona se ha muerto.” Shortening its title to “La pericona,” they manage the feat to eulogize Violeta Parra the poet, the singer, and the revolutionary, while pledging their allegiance to the graceful and the occult.
If you’re already familiar with Violeta Vil’s sound though, you’ll quickly find that it’s one that easily aligns itself with music that, depending on which side you’re fighting for, can be shallowly described as beautiful, dreamy and contemplative on one side, but also as dull, thoughtless and underdeveloped on the other. Yet what’s probably the most accomplished improvement that VV have attained in Lápidas y cocoteros, is in conceiving something that’s so smoothly capital G Gorgeous, but that never sacrifices the band’s flair for idiosyncratic musical ideas. As someone who’s an absolute sucker for all things related to a dreamy-sounding distorted guitar (or to MBV for that matter), it’s one heck of a record. Because they so effortlessly walk the uncanny line between making music that’s pretty and making music that’s challenging, that they’ve put together, in the ears of someone who loves Jessie Ware as much as Phil Elverum, some confoundingly beautiful piece of a dream pop record.
Stretch 2, Arca UNO NYC, Venezuela Rating: 87 by Pierre Lestruhaut
At this point, it’s understandable why it seems so hard for anyone at CF to write about Arca. Carlos Reyes himself told me he found his music deeply fascinating but had the hardest trouble articulating why after I announced I was going to battle my neurons and exhaust my own serotonin trying to review Stretch 2, Arca's third release of the year. The fairly wide exposure and assorted display of reviews he’s been getting since releasing it has proven to be a worthy guide into How to Review Arca, if only to spare myself from surrendering to the gushing critical cop-out of “words could not describe how great this is” I sort of fell into while reviewing his debut EP Barón Libre. Except perhaps this time we won’t oblige ourselves in hiding the artist's identity to protect his anonymous status, considering how it’s just been made widely public who Arca really is.
But fuck that. If Burial has been earning continuous critical accolades for half a decade without anyone giving a fuck about William Bevan, then why couldn't we discuss Arca's work without the unnecessary delving into the author’s conspicuously divergent past musical work? Detaching the oeuvre from the identity of its authorship is itself a respectable artistic statement too, though at this point it’s probably just going to get you a lot of needless comparisons with aforementioned uber shy beat maker. Yet considering the similarities they both sport in their sonic palette–the use of negative space, the highly processed vocals, and the dreary-club-at-2-am atmosphere–they’re in fact working within a very similar set of moods and sensitivities.
Looking closer, though, one starts to discover some fluctuations within Arca's own palette, revealing a shape-shifting aesthetic that eludes all possible shelving of it under a satisfyingly similar pre-existing umbrella. And that’s when writers like us end up staring at our screen for hours, helplessly thinking how to write about stuff like this. Because we can’t really figure out what the fuck this is, even though we've got a clear feeling it seems to be landing somewhere at the intersection of dubstep, southern rap, Salem and trip-hop. It’s as if Arca’s taken the old Groucho Marx quote of not wanting to belong to any club that would have you as a member a bit too seriously, shrugging off any possibility that there might be someday a term that could satisfyingly describe his music on his upcoming AllMusic page. Not that he’s showing off in genre-hopping presumptuousness; he’s just applying such elusiveness into tailoring his own aesthetic.
Although Arca has certainly found his place among the family of young label UNO NYC–sporting a fine roster that usually works within the frames of ghoulishly distressing forward-thinking electronica–he also seems to stand out from it by the sheer breadth of the work he has done in less than a year of releasing material. Consider just how much Stretch 2 elicits such a wide array of moods and feelings: a record that starts with shape-shifting drums inducing a sense of claustrophobia and lack of space (“Self Defense” and “Fortune”), quickly evolves into codeine-infused stoney numbers (“2 Blunted” and “Tapped In”), and just as we move through the rave synth-driven hook of “Broke Up” (at which point Arca’s alien vocals find their funkiest incarnation), closers “Meditation” and “Manners” dismiss vocals and eeriness altogether, instead patiently building a steady beat around angelic chords and soft vocal harmonies.
It would be natural to think that such a wide array of sounds would place him at the heart of eclectic trend-setter coolness, yet it’s his constantly shifting set of moods and the roller-coaster of emotions he elicits that actually responds to the more primal and visceral feelings we seek while listening to music. It’s fair to talk about Swans’ The Seer, a record so uninterested in the current musical landscape people can only talk about it in terms of the whole experience of listening to it, how it focuses solely in getting us to the visceral, the impulsive, and the anxious. Arca gets us there too, yet his M.O. is so broadly absorbent and referential (while also being so damn elusive of trends) that it works so well as both an emotional and a cerebral experience. As his palette continues to gracefully stretch in unexpected directions, it’s safe to say that the whole narrative behind Arca is essentially the expansion of his own aesthetic.
Ever since Venezuelan singer-songwriter Ulises Hadjis announced his second LP, Cosas Perdidas, was coming out in 2010, we’ve been eagerly waiting for it. It’s been a while (and we were already familiar with two of its pieces, “Música Normal” and “El Plan”), but the talented composer has finally released the album and the good vibey lead single, “Dónde Va.” Hadjis, well-known for his maximalist framework, exploits this characteristic at its best in this touchingly forceful return. Harmless yet encouraging, catchy yet audacious, “Dónde Va” won’t have a problem conquering the heart of optimistic daydreamers and lovers of galloping, full-of–sentiment, light pop reflections. “Correr, tropezar sin caer” we all know is a difficult task, but Hadjis' meaningful intonation transforms it into an apparent possibility. Directed by Heberto Añez, the clip's production, with its travelling footage, animated effects, and wonderful editing, goes hand in hand with the lustrous song’s latent core.
It's been well over a year, but one of the best tracks from 2011’s excellent La lucha constantehas a new video. The guys at Caracas-based creative agency MOSTRO have played with "La Transformación"'s theme of physical and emotional transformation to create a deliciously surreal video that is as unexpected as it is simple.
After meticulously setting things up for a birthday party, our protagonist (Cheky aka Algodón Egipcio) soon realizes no one else is coming, leaving him to pop balloons and eat cake by himself. It’s a straightforward story, shot in bright light with plenty of bold colors and crisp close-ups. But what makes this so wonderful is that our birthday boy has a dog’s head! Human body, dog head! Everyone loves a good dog video, but this takes it to the next level. Weimarener pup Bruno and his animators are the true stars, delivering an emotive performance with surprisingly nuanced (canine) facial expressions that leave you laughing at the absurdity of it all, but also really feeling for this dog/human as he goes from eager anticipation to sullen self-pity and angry frustration. All in all, a beautiful tribute to the carefully crafted layers of tropical melancholy and understated genius that make Algodón Egipcio's music such a treat.
With the release of the Stretch 1 EP, the producer behind Arca seems determined to keep his identity on a black canvas–perhaps his way to attain absolute freedom in an electronic field where entity seems to be more about wit than accommodation. After a mesmerizing initiation of space-less and loose-cannon minutes in Barón Libre (released earlier this year), and a pound-to-the-guts remix for Korallreven, the Venezuelan producer has released yet another dose of segmental hip hop. “Ass Swung Low” is the promotional cut off Arca’s latest EP, and it comes with a disturbing and sense-abducting clip by Jesse Kanda. All the cultivated mystery of the act works as Arca takes the role of a sinister ventriloquist (not to say demon right away). These are by far the scariest looking and acting kids since Jesus Camp.
If you happen to frequently read any of the same influential online publications that we do, then chances are you’ve already run into a few pieces about some of the remixes for Swedish bedroom pop duo Korallreven’s “Sa Sa Samoa,” particularly Elite Gymnastics’ BNMed jungle-y remix. Mysterious Venezuela-via-New York producer Arca, whose debut EP, Barón Libre, seriously impressed us a couple of months ago, was part of the handful of artists who participated in the remixes that were included in the official “Sa Sa Samoa” single release on Acéphale Records.
While being an anonymous electronic producer will immediately have people misjudging you as inconsequentially trying to walk under Burial’s shadow, Arca’s remix of “Sa Sa Samoa” has enough crackle and ghostly voices in its first minute and a half that he’s going to be inevitably shelved as Burial-esque. But as the track later welcomes a drowned out uptempo breakbeat and some really heart-wrenching piano notes, Arca reveals himself again as the all-encompassing descriptor-elusive producer that he’s been so far. Here, he’s made, in less than five minutes, a tune that will haunt the night bus loners as much as the bedroom daydreamers.
Venezuelan indie darling Linda Sjöquist (…Al Cruzar la Calle) made quite an impression on all of us with 2011’s miniature-turned-colossal track, “Asuntos Internos.” The rising singer seems determined to translate momentum into a new year that seems especially promising for a line of featherweight troubadour ladies that includes Argentina’s Lucila Ines and Dominican Republic duo Las Acevedo. Unlike the giant, all-consuming poltergeist hidden in her hit, the new single, “Romanticismo Ultravioleta,” is a see-through manifesto where demagogy drives artistic populism and the virtuosity of an entire generation is put into question. “Soy tan facil de amar y tan facil de olvidar,” she sings. We strongly disagree with the latter. Romanticismo Ultravioleta (a two-sided release with her two published singles) is the latest reference from Maracaibo’s recently emerged label Entorno Domestico, where Al Cruzar la Calle shares a home with fellow Venezuelan acts Jan Pawel, TLX, and Ulises Hadjis.
Financial advisers and personal motivators promised 2011 would be a year of collective healing, but they didn’t give the specifics on how we would actually get there. Whether it is the year’s pop hit (Adele’s “Rolling in the Deep”), or this summer’s indie anthem (Foster the People’s “Pumped Up Kicks”), 2011 is turning into one of the most pessimistic years in recent memory. In Latin America, the response is twice as cynical. Please, by all means, blame telenovelas for our inductive, dramatic instincts. For pop analysts, differentiating artists with a real sense for gloomy songcraft from the affected walkers is becoming a thorny assignment.
Venezuelan newcomer Juan Pablo Oczkowski has a real cultivation of intimate and austere landscapes. If you’re up for some down-to-the-bone pieces with a serious affinity for existentialism, Jan Pawel is the real deal. His debut six-track EP, Demasiado Viejo Para Morir Joven, reveals the starting mark of an artist that’s melodically subversive and thematically disquiet. Late last year, Pawel astounded us with the album’s first single “Hoy Los Muertos Estan De Pie,” described gorgeously by Blanca Méndez as “the triumphant march that announces rebirth.” From the very first cunning punches of the song, you know this is building up to something greater than the common pop song. In its first half, Pawel’s profound vocals seem like dynamite ready to detonate, but in the middle of the song, he lets go, and just as he sings “today the dead stand,” you’re embellished into a climactic religious experience.
Jan Pawel has a legit coordination with emotional resonance, and it’s his understanding of this harmony that truly makes this album a sharp breakthrough. Vocally, Pawel is like the encounter of The Magnetic Fields’ Stephin Merritt with Sr. Chinarro, but melodically (and considering his Polish background), I’m guessing he grew up listening to plenty of music from “the old world.” Jan Pawel embraces his individual condition as a singer-songwriter, but as shown in album standout, “Mi Pudor,” he is thoughtful of his surroundings. In this particular piece, he balances rustic romantics with washes of electronic boldness. Also impressive are his collaborations with compatriots Ulises Hadjis and Algodón Egipcio, who are a bit modest in their contributions, but engaging as ever. Demasiado Viejo Para Morir Joven (with its beautiful Breatheless-reminiscient artwork) is remotely an unassuming folk record and a sonic footprint from an artist already outshining expectations.
If you attended any party during the ultra-fluorescent early years of The Hype Machine, chances are you danced or fornicated to the rhythm of the now departed Venezuelan sensation, Todosantos. We’re talking serious business here. Five years ago they were the band the middle-class cool kids were listening to, the DJ's best-kept secret, and the talk of the SXSW after parties. After the distressing Todosantos breakup, lead vocalist Alberto Stangarone went on to deliver the single best remix on El Guincho’s Antillas EP, eventually investing his prolific upbeat mayhem along Brazilian dancehall dissenter Clarissa Steed. Together they go by Sunsplash.
Two years ago they released their epically upbeat first single, “Fiera de Vinil,” and, ever since, fans have been eagerly awaiting a proper release. Live in Maracana is the closest they’ve gotten to releasing an album, but it’s not proper at all. Artists and labels that tend to masquerade mixtapes as legitimate releases are the same people that can’t tell the difference between an EP and a maxi-single. I’m pointing to about 90 percent of the self-governed urban pop labels out there, including our beloved half Venezuelan, half Tijuanense tropipop label, Cocobass. Having established my concerns with taking mixtapes too seriously, I’m beyond content with what’s accomplished in Live in Maracana. There’s so much oomph in this thing that they make the premise of bass and banana drums splashing the sun sound believable.
The main dish in Live in Maracana is a spectacular 22-minute steamrolling mix where the unlikely duo pitches a lifetime supply of club bangers, propulsive fusions, and proportionless dancefloor urgency. With inexplicable tracks like “Riva Starr Got Jacked” and “Supersupimpomatic” and superb remixes for Os Mutantes and Jovenes y Sexys, this mix is up there with M.I.A.’s dazzling Vicki Leekx, so radiant and so sweaty it will leave you wheezing. The only real drawback here is the inconvenience of such a lengthy number. I’d be surprised if anyone (who’s not a DJ) actually syncs the whole thing to his or her iPod. Lucky for us, three of the tracks find individuality with the help of some sharp remixers, including Cory Blaine and Jairomendez. This is not the reference album we’ve been waiting for, but it does make us shout, “OMG, they totally got it!”
Algodón Egipcio’s very first video, “El Día Previo,” is a frame-within-a-frame fest of gorgeous composition and shredded rhythm. Mexican director Domingo Pablo takes full advantage of the widescreen, juxtaposing images in an unsuspected, almost creepy fashion. It’s so meticulous in its execution that it has been added to Vimeo’s ultra selective Staff Picks. When we described La Lucha Constante as an album of “expansive WILD continuum” and of “text and sound ambience,” this is close to what we had in mind. The idea of a multilingual karaoke is intriguing by itself, but when you add shots of nature as wallpaper, the experience is as surreal as those 3D waterfall pop ups that you used to get when you downloaded music via MP3 search engines. A beautiful first visual treat from the album we already called this year’s "wildflower."
Harto Tropical, Domingo En Llamas Independiente, Venezuela Rating: 60 by Jean-Stephane Beriot
A world without packaging, wrapping, and commercial intuition would be dreary and disappointing to the senses. There’s not a single song in my iTunes library without some kind of embedded artwork; an album without an album cover is as muddy as a blind date or, even worse, as ineffectual as an eHarmony profile without a face photo. Where exactly am I going with all this? Oh yes, to Domingo En Llamas. A few weeks ago when I asked our editor for the album cover of Domingo En Llamas’ latest record, Harto Tropical, he informed me of a sacrilege: “Jose Ignacio Benitez doesn’t believe in album covers.” Well, this is an intriguing surprise (especially for someone who points to Dr. John's Gris-Gris (1968) as his favorite album of all time). A few ideas come to mind when trying to figure out Benitez’s reasons for visual-less records, but none strong enough to convince me. Sure, having a cover gives the listener a predisposition of an album’s content, but Domingo En Llamas' form of "untold data" excitement is purely transitory.
As you can see, I made myself an UNOFFICIAL album cover for Domingo En Llamas’ eighth album Harto Tropical. Having that ugly grey music note on my iPod felt like giving up to the standard, and I wouldn’t allow myself such an option. Perhaps this was Benitez’s plan all along, to let his listeners draw conclusions like we used to do with self-made mixtapes. While the entrance to the Harto Tropical is a bit jumbled and might require a few first steps for some of us, the hassle is worthy for a one-man act that has crafted one of the most interesting profiles in Venezuelan music today. We’ve previously described him as an auteur, a troubadour, and a music historian. After two glowing reviews for the wonderfully theatrical Fledermaus (2008) and the erotic Truccatore (2010), his latest album, Harto Tropical, is supposed to be ghostly, but it’s mostly bland. My lexicon is very limited, so allow me to go back to our latest Shakira album review (Sale El Sol) and steal its description: milquetoast.
Harto Tropical is an evocative folk record that strikes to sound like a time-defying rock and roll album. While that approach would seem promising to both experimentalists and purists, the line of attack is so disputed that it almost drowns in sentimentalism. Some of Benitez’s questionable practices include the stamping of normative composition (“Las Afinaciones Narradas”), jazzy simulations (“Despropositos”), and middling one-man orchestras (“Laudano con Vainilla”). Harto Tropical isn’t an awful album, though, it’s just Domingo En Llamas’ first less-than-extraordinary album and that’s why I might be sounding a bit harsh. Fortunately, there are enough good ideas in here to give it a passing grade. Especially in the idea of making a zarzuela opera house out of songs like “Fariseos y Anonimos” and “Montecasino," where Bentinez’s virtuoso eye for words, royal festivities, and baroque linguistics prevail. Fun fact: Domingo En Llamas’ “Depredadores” was the wrapping theme around our very first volume of Fonogramaticos. I don’t mind making album covers for future Domingo En Llamas albums as long as we get back to the more adventurous and less ethereal artist we fell in love with a couple of years ago.
For the last two years, Venezuelan blog NTSFRSH has been our preferred source for the new prospects of tropical music and all of its global cousins. Last year the blog extended its content-creating duties developing the exciting Cocobass Records, home of Fonograma favorites like María y José and Los Macuanos. Owner of a gifted aesthetic eye and a shameless eclecticism, Eduardo Luis Hernández, one of the franchise’s masterminds, is taking the first steps into developing his own musical act under the moniker FLYBACK (FLYB∆CK for those with enough swag).
Although it was almost completely omitted by mainstream Latin pop-rhythmic radios across the States, Plan B’s hit “Si No Le Contesto” was the absolute zeitgeist across many regions of the continent last year. The song’s official video counts over 51 million views, an insane number for a reggaeton song nowadays. Plan B is one of those urban acts worthy to watch, with hardcore fans that include Tego Calderón, Arcángel, and Dávila 666. Although Flyback admits vocals aren’t his biggest strength, he has paid tribute to the Plan B song in a rendition that highlights the original’s pop structure, adding plenty of glittering tropical depth along the way. By practicing some clever tricks and distortion, Flyback pushes the song’s pedestrianism to even further places.
La Lucha Constante, Algodón Egipcio Lefse Records, Venezuela Rating: 90 By Carlos Reyes
Constructed in the urban stretch of Caracas (Venezuela), Algodón Egipcio’s opera prima brings an artist’s eye to the hardscrabble role of music as the modern language syntax. La Luncha Constante (or the falls & triumphs of everyday life) is the subtropical and elliptical first solo album by Ezequiel Bertho ("Cheky"), who has crafted a garden of sounds comprised, encoded, and constituted by the force of individual reason. The human language is the rationale by which linguists romanticize about art, but the artists themselves thrive for readable formalism; the search for the aesthetic, the form, and the medium. The composition in this magnificent 10-piece record is of personal quest, but also of expansive WILD continuum.
Like the well-packaged titles of his songs, Algodon Egipcio’s shrewdness for craftsmanship is of inner expression and experience, but also attentively in dialogue with its era. In dialogue, but not in tune; Cheky’s platforms neither practice nor reject vocation, - they’re just ‘flowy.’ All these conditions allow for such a song like “La Transformación” to be read as a piece about the alteration of data, genetics, your virtual 'Second Life' character, or a full metamorphosis (and how sadly, there is no 'back button'). The cultural epochs in La Lucha Constante are allocated to a time frame; instead, we get a comprehension of its installment through the negotiation of rhythms that are presented to us. It’s as if Cheky’s infamous Afro was the epicenter for sylvan ideas and actions. The execution of such ideas - and how they come to action through the music- is more suffocating than nurturing, but trust me, for a visionary fascinated by The Smashing Pumpkins, Akron/Family & Destiny’s Child, the experience's outcomes are phenomenal.
Working with barely any instrumentation but a few chords and a lot of waves, we could fool you and describe this record as programmable mesh of language and technological composition, but that would be like reducing an elk’s horns to just its primitive defensive purposes. A garden of sounds? The afro as a music village? Elk’s horns? Yes, I might be pushing my music illusions to the limit, but when you’re as stimulated by a set of songs as I am in this case, there’s nothing more honest to do but to organize those illusions into all-senses diplomacy. When the accelerated opening heartbeats of “El Dia Previo” show up, another scale of water drops keeps the upcoming chords and melody on track… setting up the conditions for the first verbal narrative in the album. This is the structural form I’m referring to, acknowledging the intended form & the work of an auteur with your wildest approximation (Yes, I even have theories of why he’s missing a “LAS” on the album’s all-definite articulos grammar).
My review of the album might be as scattered as other critic’s giving it the ‘I don’t understand Spanish’ warning, but fortunately, this pop diviner gets his act together just fine. You might need to fully invest yourself in the text & sound ambiance, but once you’ve penetrated it, let’s just say you’ll be shoegazing these songs as suspiciously as you rocked to Big Boi’s “Shutterbugg” last year. While Cheky’s structure approach is ultra personal, the song’s lyricism is of universal emotion (without a drop of sentimentalism). The rooting but all-consuming landscape in “El Ingenio Humano” is like the last strike for a relationship, the folksy and resourceful “El Sonido Ensordecedor” shouts the surfacing of a new era, and “Los Parpados Caidos” is a sublime culmination/realization of the human strength. La Lucha Constante is touching, heroic, & disorienting, where even the cloudy tracks are triumphant. Cheky’s dislocating treatment of the medium as both, mechanism & text, sum up to a radiant slice of selective nature. La Luncha Constante is 2011’s wildflower, also, one of the year’s best albums.
