mardi 24 novembre 2009

Reportaje en BUENOS AIRES para el World Sound #8





Stereotypes suggest that Buenos Aires is some sort of european enclave in south america. Some kind of urbanistic consistency, a feeling of european capital, a taste for arts, an old metro system that inspires nostalgy, bookshops and posters promoting union action, theatre plays or a new book, tango culture like an invisible bond between the old and the new world...Most things that mark a difference with the continent's big cities like Sao Paulo, Rio, Lima and Bogota.

Despite that, as the days grow longer in October, the city is once again on the verge of another political crisis. Today the parliament is voting the Media Law (which aims to reduce the influence of big private corporations on the audiovisual landscape), which president Cristina Kirchner is trying to force through at any cost, in the middle of a climate of extreme polarization, and a crucial football game that same night, which will decide whether or no Argentina will participate to the South African WorldCup!

Buenos Aires may have witnessed many days like this and others worse during its history. But the buses full of "militants" that came to "support the vote of this law " and generate huge gridlocks on the Avenue 9th of July, give mixed impressions. Here you will not find students longing to debate Chomsky's and Bourdieu's theories on the media, but rather herds of peones. Coming straight from the projects with no slogans nor signs, they don't look very versed in law and media maters, but more interested in body language and dynamite class firecrackers. Just add to it smoke and horns, and you'll see that yes, this is south america !

SOUTHERN SUBURB

In order to escape the Gotan Project video clip-like image of a velvet capital, we had asked Chancha Via Circuito, one of the distinguished members of the Zizek tribe which recently toured the US, and promotes worldwide its own revisited interpretation of cumbia villera, an argentinan projects version of columbian cumbia, to take us to his house. Heading to the meeting place, the printing workshop where he works downtown, one starts to imagine one of those hypish and coulourful characters that rock the blazé crowds in Hamburg ,Paris, NY. But the man is politely quiet. As soon as he finishes work, we rush together in the overcrowded metro for a dosis of daily routine in the huge argentinian capital. As we hit Constitucion train station, we catch the Genreal Roca line, formerly...Chancha via Circuito line ! Things start to get clearer!

The train rattles towards Lanus through extraordinarily anarchic and dirty shanty towns. Exhausted workers lie on the ground, clouds of marijuana drift out of the bike box (with no bikes in it) and the characteristic "chucucha" of the cumbia rhythm can be heard coing out of any of the headphones around. This is the typical suburbian "Che boluudoo" "wassup m2#@@#er" type of atmosphere. " Most of the cats here listen to cumbia villera, as you can hear. This is clearly not a music that rich people listen to. Its considered something for the masses and looked upon as such. The cumbia villera talks about hustlingm the barrio, just like hip hop would actually."

MYSTICAL FOLKLORE

Totally in harmony with that reality -he is the only one among the Zizek tribe to actually live in the remote southern suburbs- Chancha is entitled to talk about that music he knows so well, and sincerely appreciates. He marks his difference with the likes of Villa Diamante - the most popular dj of the Zizek tribe- whose work mainly consists in mash ups - a combination of a classic cumbia rhtyhm with a vocal track, as hypish and far from original cumbia as possible, be it Daft Punk or De la Soul...After all, if this genre is getting more and more popular on the club scene in Europe and the US, among the Argentinian middle class youth, where Missy Elliott could as well be a brand of lipstick, the reaction is not as significant.

The sun goes down on Jorge Marmol district, a sort of middle class low rise suburb bathed in the autumnal light of the austral spring. A group of teenagers sips Maté while chatting. It's here, in those little parks surrounded by houses and nice vacant lots, that Chancha and his singer girlfriend, Sol, come to play their neo folk made of strange noises, whispers and airy guitars. We are now far from the media buzz and the trendy european clubs and festivals.

Exactly what Chancha wants to escape from, as he seeks to create sound atmospheres that have strong references among the repertoire of bearded singers, far from the cumbia classics. The wonderful voices of mystic folklorists Leda Valladares and Jose Larralde haunt his new productions. "The new cumbia helps promote that kind of things among the young, even if you have to admit that the crowds that listen to the new cumbia now were never interested in folkloric music nor brought up to even appreciate it" point Sol and Chancha, sipping and passing a Mate at home " Nowadays there is a movement which consists in digging more in the folklore genre. Villa Diamante started to do mash ups of folklore. It's part of the same dynamic, right now pretty much everything from anywhere could be part of your musical options". But these reflections should not mislead us. Two days later, at a Mutek party in Club Niceto (the Montreal festival has a delocalized event in Buenos Aires) he showed again that once at the control, he moves the crowds like no one else can...

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jeudi 5 novembre 2009

REPORTAJES PARA WORLD SOUND -- SAO PAULO---outro jeto de beat**



mi querida revista me mando a Sao Paulo para una serie de articulos interesantes: Les Nubians (video), un duo de cantoras de hip hop con sabor a Afro de Bordeaux (conocidas mas en USA que en Francia, de hecho) fueron invitadas, juntas con Adama Yalamba de Mali y unas chefs africanas tambien de Bordeaux, a participar en unos talleres por distintas favelas del pais del orden y del progreso...acompañados por el colectivo Moleque de Rua ! En las visperas de la salida de su proximo album, que ellas quieren terminar durante esta visita, esto pinta muy interesante. Otra razon es la venida a Sao Paolo de mi amigo Amayo (video), el cantante del legendario grupo de afro beat neoyorquino (musica!) Antibalas, para grabar unas sesiones para el primer album de su nuevo proyecto solo, el Fu Arkist Ra... Y finalmente, la idea es hacer algo que a WorldSound le gusta, uno de estos retratos de ciudad como los que fuerons hechos sobre Estanbul y Panama. Con la cantidad de contactos establecidos, en esa locura de ciudad, tenemos buenas perspectivas adelante, y asi nos montamos en el avion...




Bueno, al llegar, SPaulo es bien deprimente..sobre todo cuando hace algo de frio, llueve, y pensabas llegar a Brasil, Brasil por favooor ! a finales de un mes de septembre normalmente el tiempo deberia ser bonito...le sumas a esto 4 horas de sueño, los trancones entre una favela, un cloaca y unos rascacielos, y un terminal / metro super loco, gente corriendo por todos lados...guau ! La visita al centro es maso lo mismo, pero esta vez tiene un toque casi cinematografico, que de una vez lo seduce a uno. Vemos unas autopistas urbana encerradas entre fortalezas de 50 pisos, en medio de la cual hay un hueco y por este hueco, por debajo aparece otra autopista! Pasando encima de esto, pasarelas con gente, algunas encorbatadas otras saliendo del taller, corriendo hacia las entradas del metro, vendedores de comida china, fideos saltados, dvds porno, mendigos, llovizna, policia...con esta mezcla, asia- america latina, pasado con futuro caotico e incierto, casi estamos en el set up de una pelicula tipo blade runner o 5to elemento..es feamente lindo...féérique! Se siente que al anochecer el barrio Anhangabau se transformara en algo poco recomendable para la gente del comun, un lugar en el cual solo permaneceran los mendigos, las prostituas de Agusta que tienen su apartamento en esta zona, y uno que otro artista underground con su taller o miembro de la comunidad gay... Amayo me comenta que seguramente, es lo mas parecido a lo que pudo ser NY en los años 70, antes de que Giuliani transformara la manzana en naranja mecanica para Bobo's.



Buildings enteros abandonados, como este predio Martinelli, que fue el mas grande squat de America Latina hasta hace poco !

Venimos para musica...el articulo en WorldSound lo contara todo, pero SP es impresionante en este aspecto. Desde que Rio dejo de ser capital, el ascenso de SP como capital musical de Brazil ha sido permanente. Y la caida de los grandes sellos disqueros, fuente del poderio carioca en terminos musicales, a favor de los sellos independientes y de las redes informales que caracteriza la escena en SP, ha terminado de confirmar esta tendencia. Despues de las oleadas de cariocas, ahora es la gente de Recife que viene a llenar el escenario con sus talentos polirytmicos. Hay de todo en SP, pero lo que mas llama la atencion entre la cantidad de gente que uno va encontrando es este trip hop Paulista que se esta haciendo, del cual (musica!)Instituto/3 Namassa, proyectos liderados por Rica Amabis, es uno de los mejores representantes, con tambien Curumin, Céu o Guizado. Una fascinacion para el triphop que hasta llevo la Orquesta Imperial (de Rio pero como siempre su publico esta en SP) a presentar aqui una serie de conciertos dedicados a Serge Gainsbourg ! Y es que encaja perfectamente con este ambiente retrofuturistico, este paisaje urbano algo frio-caliente, esta latinidad gozona mezclada con la soledad melancolica del sujeto europeo post-68 (???)...



en esta filmacion de baja calidad, una sesion en el estudio de Fefe, con el bajista ZeNigro, el percusionista de Recife Jota y el cantante Amayo en los teclados, esbozando arreglos para un posible track del proximo album de la figura de Antibalas. Noche de tragos y humo...mas tarde, el taxi se llevara la mochila con la camara y el cuaderno de notas...al dia siguiente, Jota se pondra en la bateria para tocar sus primerimos breaks de afro beat...lo hara como si siempre lo hubiese tocado...3 dias mas adelante, vuelvo a encontrar la mochila con la camara adentro