Monthly Archives: June 2010

Lucía Ferreira (Uruguayan Unsigned Artist)

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Lucia Ferreira

Lucía Ferreira

In one of his most revered poems, Longfellow described the flight of song as something too strong and too constant to be followed by the human eye. If we were to dig deeper into what is implied in that frequently-anthologized lay (what the heck, Gil Grissom actually recites it in one chapter of CSI), we would have to agree that the only point of origin for something which is indeed strong and constant has to be an artist that meets these very two aptitudes. And you can say what you want about Uruguayan artists, but more than a very representative number of performers here certainly shine when it comes to strength, and excel as far as constancy is concerned. The one I would like to tell you a little about now certainly does.

She is named Lucía Ferreira, and during her artistic life she has been part of duets (“No Es Mi Mujer”) [She Is Not My Woman], murgas (“La Japilong”), rock & roll bands (“Vía Libre”) [Free Way]… she is currently playing with Julio Ojeda. Any artist that has treaded so much ground in less than 30 years is not only a well-nurtured one. To all intents and purposes, such an artist is the one who is nurturing to others.

The songs she is currently working on often touch on issues such as self search and the validation of one’s place in the world (that is the thematic denominator of both “Diván” [Couch] and “Me Quiero Quedar” [I Want To Stay]), and the role that art has a mediator between the world that there is and the world that there should be is incarnated in songs like “Vieja Viola” [Old Six-string]. In the song (a tango written by luminary Humberto Correa), an old performer can but look into his former source of pride (his guitar) from a yearning stance that paints a savage contrast with the humdrum of the domesticity he has sunk into. The corollary is that an artist is always a seeker of something else in life, even if that implies that to let others find that something he will have to renounce to his ability to hold onto these things that he has found along the way. Lucía does the song very well, as she has all the necessary vocal chops to convey the world-weariness of the lyrics, if only because a voice that has been tempered by so many styles becomes malleable in itself. Continue reading →

Mixtap.in – Making Mixtapes Fashionable Once Again

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Mixtapin

Name: Mixtap.in
URL: http://www.mixtap.in

Mixtapes ruled. They gave us one of the first true glimpses of freedom when it came to making others experience music in the same way that we did. The way we had arranged the songs was to be the de facto way to experience these artists for anybody who came into possession of the mixtape later on. Any person who wanted to know you better just had to get the tape you had assembled and play it.

Mixtapes also had other ramifications. For example, I can’t think of the song “Runaway Train” without thinking of the last seconds of an ad that played right before the version someone had taped for me started. Even when I am listening to “Black Gold”, in the short silence that separates “Tied To The Tracks” from “Runaway Train” the final seconds of that ad play in my mind. It will probably be like that for evermore.

Maybe you are too young to know all this. If that is so, I have the perfect site for you. It is named Mixtap.in, and it will let you create a mixtape for others to enjoy. You can add up to twelve tracks for each mixtape that you create, and you can then label it. If the mixtape that you have assembled is meant to sound like Dr. Hook then you simply state so. Others will be able to find it in a much easier way then, as all the featured mixtapes are readily searchable. Continue reading →

Los Amigos Invisibles (Sordromo) – Uruguayan Music

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“Los Amigos Invisibles” was Sordromo’s Final Album. It Came Out In 2004. Julio Berta Had Been Replaced By Martín Craciun, But Otherwise It Was The Same Lineup.

Sordromo’s fourth (and valedictory) album, “Los Amigos Invisibles” [“The Invisible Friends”] contains some of their best music together, but also a number of compositions that sound like nothing but rehashes of songs they had previously offered up. These compositions do not dominate the album in any sense, but they speak of a strained creative process, and upon listening to the album today it becomes evident why Rodrigo Gómez left the band shortly after the album had been issued.

To shunt the negative songs out of the way once and for all: “Lejos De Casa” [Far Away From Home] derives its melody and tonal structure from the song “Desnorteados” from the previous album, only that this time it lacks all punch. “Tanto Control” [So Much Control] and “Llamame” [Call Me] are clear examples of volume that tries to convey sentiment and that only ends up conveying patchiness.  “Nota Para Un Viaje” [Note For A Travel] is no much better, but it is placed right before the first truly good composition of the album (the title track), and there is a thematic bond at play that makes it more palatable.

But the one song that can’t be stomached no matter how much you try is “Un Secreto” [A Secret], where Sordromo apes the brit sound of bands like Astroboy. This song alone tarnishes the first side of the album irrevocably – and most of the compositions I criticized above were already segregated there to begin with.

Still, it is on the first side of “Los Amigos Invisibles” where we find one of Sordromo’s most memorable hits, “Lucerito” (a tale of broken farewells and reconstituted memories). The song has really exciting dynamics, and the breaks are as good as the ones found on “2 + 2= 3”, where the drums virtually jump from the speakers and run over you.  And the first side also hosts the angsty “El Filo Del Tiempo” [The Edge Of Time], a song that anticipates the hat trick that will close the album. “La Calma Y La Tormenta” [The Calm And The Storm], “A Punto De Equivocarme” [Just About To Make A Mistake] and “Inevitablemente” [Inevitably].

The three songs are linked by the despondency of the lyrics, and in “A Punto De Equivocarme” [Just About To Make A Mistake] Rodrigo’s voice sounds as if he were about to break down at any moment. It is a song in which emotions strafe the listener, and not a single bullet misses the target.

It works perfectly as the prelude to “Inevitablemente” [Inevitably], of course. The song is rendered solely by Rodrigo (he sings and plays the acoustic guitar), and his voice sounds bitten, as if after the previous caterwaul of emotions he has finally wiped the tears away, but tearing a bit of skin in the process. The song makes me think a lot of The Smiths’ final song, “I Won’t Share You”. Similar circumstances (creative differences), same message (it was good until it lasted, but that was it). Continue reading →

Vevo Adds A Channel For The Promotion Of New Artists

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As one could have guessed from the latest figures that were released, the growth of Vevo is not stopping anytime soon. Last week saw the addition of a new channel, and one that could modify the way people experience the video platform for the better.

Named “The Next Wave presented by Schick Hydro”, the channel is basically a showcase for new talent. Unfortunately, not every kind of new artist could be featured there – only those who are signed to any of the three record companies that have partnered with YouTube (remember, Vevo is a joint venture comprising Google, Universal, Sony and investor Abu Dhabi Media Company) have a chance to be spotlighted .

The idea is clearly to give these artists that have already been signed a chance to become a new sensation to rival others like Lady Gaga (who is responsible for the bulk of visits Vevo has every month). Continue reading →

Mal Yo (Uruguayan Unsigned Artist)

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Mal Yo

“Mal Yo” [My Fault] is a Uruguayan trio that plays good ol’ rock & roll. It comprises guitarist/lead singer Diego Da Silva, bassist Martín Bernasconi and drummer Sergio Alastra. Sergio is actually slightly older than the rest, and (to my ear) he is the standout musician in the band. Yes, I have some catching up with the doctor to do.

Seriously, now, he provides the most memorable passages in their songs – look at the way in which he sustains the tension during the choruses to “La 22”, or the killer triplet that he uses to wrap up “A Tiempo” after having shifted beats all through the song. Besides, any person who has had the nerve to play in a band named “El Tatú Lunar” [The Lunar Tattoo] and then in another that was named “Monos Con Navajas” [Monkeys With Blades] has earned my absolute admiration. He must get invited to fewer parties than me.

The band is currently recording its debut album, and a couple of their songs can be downloaded for free on their website. (They can also be streamed on their MySpace page). These are “A Tiempo” [In Time], “Tu Lugar” [Your Place] and “La 22” [Table Number 22]. I have to admit that I am not really bowled over by their music on the whole, but one of these three songs has got me interested like little else. I must have listened to the song “A Tiempo” more than the three guys combined with all of their families and friends. Cubed. I honestly don’t recall having done something like that before, and that was the reason I decided to write about them. Because I don’t really like the other two songs they have, as I find the main riffs just a tad too generic – the main riff in “La 22”, for example, reminds me too much of songs like “Tu Dei” by Dsus4 (another Uruguayan band, and one that is sadly playing the great gig in the sky after having released a reasonably good debut album in 2006 entitled “Nada Permanece Quieto” [Nothing Remains Still]).

Mal You Playing Live: Martín Bernasconi, Sergio Alastra & Diego Da Silva

Mal Yo Playing Live: Martín Bernasconi, Sergio Alastra & Diego Da Silva

“A Tiempo” is the one song of theirs that sounds fresh and invigorating, and the lyrics display a very realized use of alliterative figures. Each verse is topped and tailed with the expressions “A veces” [Sometimes] and “A tiempo” [In Time], and the chorus is quite impacting, especially the second time around. The song also has a distinctive structure, as it comprises only two verses and a chorus that is played once and then repeated after the solo before the song concludes. That shifts the thematic emphasis of the lyrics, which being topped and tailed as described above would be imbued with a sort of conciliatory (or at least conclusive) air. This turns the song into something that ends up expressing losses that one would have thought were to be averted: “Y nosotros dos añoramos/nuestra vida perfecta” [And the two of us long for/our perfect life]. Continue reading →

Tastebuds – Find A Perfect Match Based On Your Favorite Music

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Tastebuds

Name: Tastebuds
URL: http://www.tastebuds.fm

As much as I try not to babble all the time about music when I first meet someone, I always end up doing so if the other person shows a certain degree of interest in any of the bands I like. The thing is, not a lot of people where I live know who the heck The Who or XTC are, so I mostly end up taking about the value that music has in people’s lives, blah, blah. As a matter of fact, I have a small group of CDs in my collection that I like to call “social” albums – these are albums by artists I don’t really like but that everybody else adores like U2, The Ramones and Bon Jovi. Whenever I host a party, these are the albums I bring to the room where the Hi-fi will be located. Playing “That Wave”, “Rook” and “Omnibus” is not something that lets anybody find common ground here in Uruguay.

I wanted to tell you that because the site I am reviewing today is centered on forming relationships between people based on the music that they like. It is not exactly a dating site, but it matches you with another single who shares your very same musical tastes. You will take it from there, in the direction you want to take it.

The matching process itself works in two different ways. The first is faster, but it necessitates you having a Last.fm account since Tastebuds checks it and sees exactly what kind of music you like. A series of matches is then produced. Continue reading →

English Settlement (XTC) – Album Review (Part 2)

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Read the introduction to this review here.

“English Settlement” was released in 1982, and as opposed to “Black Sea” (the album that preceded it, and an album that was devised as a vehicle for live performances) the double LP hinted at the more pastoral sound the band was to adopt in earnest shortly. Of course, the embracement of such a tone was precipitated by the events that took place while they were touring “English Settlement” – first, Andy breaking down onstage and declaring the band would play live no more, and then the loss of Terry Chambers (the most level-headed member of the band, and someone who basically was in a group because he enjoyed playing live).

As I explained at the end of yesterday’s introduction, it was on “English Settlement” that Andy realized there was nothing wrong with exploring the capabilities that studios offer in terms of instrumentation. He no longer wanted to record only songs that could be replicated live exactly as they had gone down into tape. The record was then freed from a conceptual straightjacket and the results were to be the first true sampler of XTC as most of us love them: zany, daft, zany, wildly unpredictable, and zany. And utterly brilliant.

Each song is a true universe in itself. I think that there are not that many albums in which every note that you are hearing is germane to the actual constituency of a song as in the vast majority of the cuts featured on this double LP. With the exception of “Down In The Cockpit” and “Melt The Guns”, the extended duration of most of the songs is warranted – “Jason And The Argonauts” has an hypnotic instrumental passage that is not really a solo but rather a sagacious way to sustain the tension of the middle eight until the song comes back on track for its conclusion, and “Leisure” has some dissident breaks that amplify the tedium of the lyrics fabulously. Besides “All Of A Sudden” had to run that long if only because that was the only way the music could truly represent the inability to grasp the reality which is expressed in the song.

Discrimination based on race (“No Thugs In Our House” and “Knuckle Down”) and on gender (“Down In The Cockpit “) is a recurrent theme on English Settlement, and Colin sings about modernization in “Ball And Chain”, a song that precedes “Boarded Up” by two decades. The difference is that in “Ball And Chain” something was still standing up and could be ostensibly saved; by the time he wrote “Boarded Up” there was not such a chance. Continue reading →

English Settlement (XTC) – Album Review (Part 1)

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Released In 1982, “English Settlemenet” Was To Be XTC’s Final Album Before They Became A Studio-only Band

Released In 1982, “English Settlemenet” Was To Be XTC’s Final Album Before They Became A Studio-only Band

Upon discovering XTC and reading every single article and clipping I could find about them, I intended to make “English Settlement” one of my first purchases. But chance and coincidence determined that the album would be one of the last I would actually buy. And I can frankly tell you that was not a bad thing.

XTC’s first (and only) double album ever, “English Settlement” (1982) is not for those who are just getting acquainted with the band, let alone the uninitiated. The rewards that the album yields are incommensurable, but you have to be patient in order to get to the point in which everything starts clicking divinely.

I must admit that this is the one and only XTC album in which I have a problem with Andy’s voice. Songs which are astonishingly good like “All Of A Sudden (It’s Too Late Now)” and the great album closer “Snowman” are hard to be appreciated at first because his delivery can’t fully accommodate the new styles that he began broaching by this point, and which are a clear step in a divergent direction from XTC’s previous high-powered period. (Something similar happened to Joe Strummer when The Clash began aiming for styles far removed from punk, most notably on the triple album “Sandinista!”) Continue reading →

Is Vevo Set To Become The One-Stop For Online Music Videos?

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Vevo (a joint venture among Google and Universal, Sony and investor Abu Dhabi Media Company) launched in December 2009 as a way to bridge the distance that was still left between online music videos and “traditional” videos. Most of all, it was conceived as a brand-new way to serve ads to viewers.

Both Sony and Universal feature their content from A to Z on the video portal, whereas Warner (a company that has always been labeled as square by musicians and fans alike) might start feeding its own content, too.

That comes as no surprise. In April 2010,Vevo managed to climb to No. 4 on comScore’s list of sites ranked by unique viewers. During that month, it was estimated that one out of four individuals watching an online video was doing so on Vevo.

Look at the stats:

Vevo Music Videos Stats

I have also read a study that says we watch approximately 2 minutes per video. According to these graphs, this means that each of us must have watched roughly 5 and a half hours of online videos during April.  That amounts to something like 11 minutes of videos per day.

I don’t know how accurate do these numbers sound to you. I can tell you as a fact that I have found myself landing a lot on Vevo recently when merely carrying Google searches – that didn’t happen with such a frequency before.

What do you think? Are these stats accurate? Do you spend more time watching videos at work than ever before? Or is Google’s Pacman the one and only thing you have to plead guilty to as far as your productivity went in the past months?

Tony Bouchereau (The Tony-B Machine) – Interview (Part 2)

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Below you will find the second part of my interview with Tony Bouchereau, the creator of the Tony-B Machine. Make sure to check all the links he provided as part of the answers! And you can read Part 1 here.

PART II

MUSIC & YOU

When did you become interested in music? What was the first album or single you ever purchased?

I play music (traverse flute) since the age of 8.
I think the first album I bought was “No One Is Innocent”, a French metal band.

Are you in a band yourself, or have you been in a band in the past? Is there a clip on YouTube or elsewhere we could watch?

I play the flute in the Quatuor Megamix.
We play 90’s Dance hits arranged in a classical way.
Sound and videos at http://www.myspace.com/quatuormegamix

Musical likes and dislikes? Favorite artists?

I especially like Techno artists like Laurent Wolf, Joachim Garraud or David Guetta.
But I am open to a few other musical styles. Continue reading →