Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Neo Tango
Like the rest of the music scene in Buenos Aires, a newer tango has evolved that's a hybrid
of sounds and styles - making tango cool again with a younger audience. Musicians have
been sampling and remixing classic tango songs, adding dance beats, breaks, scratches and
synth lines, and committing other delightful heresies. This edgy genre has been called by
many names: fusion tango, electrotango, tango electronica or neo-tango. Paris-based Gotan
Project (a Franco-Suizo-Argentine trio) was the first to popularize this style, with its debut
album
La Revancha del Tango,
which throws into the mix samples from speeches by Che
Guevara and Eva Perón and remixes by the likes of Austrian beatmeister Peter Kruder. Its
follow-up albums don't break the mold like the first but are still great if you like the Gotan
sound.
The best of the genre's albums so far is likely
Bajofondo Tango Club,
by the Grammy-
winning collective Bajofondo. It's spearheaded by Argentine producer Gustavo Santaolalla,
who won two best-original-score Oscars for
Brokeback Mountain
and
Babel;
he also
scored the films
Amores Perros
and
21 Grams,
and produced albums by such prominent
artists as Café Tacuba and Kronos Quartet. Praised as more Argentine than Gotan Project
(whose trio is composed of only one Argentine), its first album has subtle performances by
a variety of
bandoneonistas
within a hypnotic framework of lounge, house and trip-hop. Its
third album,
Mar Dulce
, is a catchy creation that throws more folk and rock into the mix
and has a strong international cast of singers, such as Spanish hip-hop star Mala Rodŕiguez
and the Canadian-Portuguese Nelly Furtado.
Another neo-tango collective to make an international name for itself is Tanghetto, with
two Latin Grammy nominations. This six-member group mixes elements of rock, jazz, fla-
menco and
candombe
(a drum-based musical style of Uruguay).
