“Mantras” is the first album released by Pablo Faragó. It brings together some of the best compositions created by the celebrated former guitarist for Niquel during the last ten years. During that time, Pablo embarked on a solo career characterized by electric guitar improvisations with the use of loop samplers.
As Pablo himself explains in the liner notes that come with the CD, “these compositions are name “mantras” because of their cyclic and meditative nature”.
Pablo Faragó
On the album, Pablo is joined by percussionist Fernando “Cacho” Rodríguez in the two cuts that run the longest. The album is made up of 12 selections, and it certainly succeeds in taking the listener through very different sound landscapes.
I invite you to read the interview I conducted with Pablo just last year, and to visit his MySpace profile. You will find lots of pieces representative of this original project right there.
De inminente aparición en el mercado, “Mantras” de Pablo Faragó recoge algunas de las mejores composiciones creadas por el célebre ex-guitarrista de Níquel en los últimos diez años. En este tiempo, Pablo se ha embarcado en un proyecto solista caracterizado por la improvisación con guitarra eléctrica a través de generadores de ciclos de sonido (“loop samplers”).
Como explica Pablo en las notas que acompañan al disco, “estas composiciones reciben el nombre de “mantras” por su característica cíclica y meditativa”.
En el disco es asimismo acompañado por el percusionista Fernando “Cacho” Rodríguez en dos de las composiciones de mayor extensión.
Pablo Faragó
“Mantras” de Pablo Faragó será comercializado en todos los locales de Palacio De La Música. El disco cuenta con 12 temas, donde se generan paisajes sonoros realmente diversos.
Los invito a leer la entrevista efectuada en este mismo blog a Pablo hace algunos meses, y a visitar su perfil de MySpace. Allí encontrarán muchas piezas representativas de este original proyecto.
Pablo Faragó puede ser contactado en la siguiente dirección: pablo.farago@gmail.com.
The Bear Season: Ale Nario, Fela Magnani, Santiago de Souza, Dave Lazar, Manuel Curiel and Álvaro de León.
You know what? I’ve had it with these stuffy folks at Oxford. They’ve sold us a language that’s nowhere as limited as they’ve always claimed. They’ve shown us nothing but these sides of words they wanted us to see. Period. Take the verb “shock”, for instance. I’ve recently become aware such a verb isn’t as one-dimensional as they have told us all our lives. It’s dawned on me that it’s equally possible to be shocked positively and negatively, that you can be shocked both in good and in bad ways. Hesitant? Read on…
Definition of “something that shocked me in a bad way”: the day a friend gave me a copy of Anal Cunt’s “40 More Reasons to Hate Us” album as a birthday present, on the ostensible grounds that I love collecting rare CDs. As if that wasn’t bad enough, at around that time this wondrous friend had the chance to buy Led Zeppelin’s “Remasters” for the price of a single CD and add it to his personal collection, and he chose to buy a studio album by Wang Chung instead.
Despite the fact that I changed my address twice and that now I sleep ensconced in the middle of an underground labyrinth, I still have nightmares from time to time.
Definition of “something that shocked me in a good way”: the day I listened to The Bear Season’s debut EP (“Do It“) for the first time. Despite being Uruguayan, the guys sounded so Californian that I couldn’t help thinking if they had long blonde hair and big breasts then they’d be Athena Lundberg.
They’ve always been one of these bands I was more than eager to feature on MusicKO, but for some intricate reason or the other (like being busy listening to Pixie Lott’s debut album) I could never get around to doing it. Until now. Continue reading →
The Blueberries onstage. Left to right: Andrés Jaureguy; Virginia Álvarez, Ernesto Pasarisa and Fede Fromhell.
The Blueberries have just issued their first promotional video. That honor was bestowed on the song “London Eye”, the track which opens their eponymous debut. (Profiled on MusicKO here; free download here.)
The video is shot in and about Montevideo’s Parque Rodó, our national airport (shown at the end) and some locations of unspecified source.
And yes, I’m aware that “some locations of unspecified source” is the most bizarre way of saying you haven’t got the foggiest idea where some place is.
I must say I never thought you could play guitar with a smoke in the hand like Ernesto does on the clip… I was amazed enough with Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers playing “The Waiting” with their instruments unplugged!
And I thought I was a terrific air drummer! I have to befriend Fede Fromhell on Facebook, we’re becoming soul mates for sure…
One of the sweetest songs from “Historias de Invierno” gets a guitar-and-voice treatment for this live performance. I actually like this version of “Si Me Pierdo” [If I Get Lost] better than the one on the original album – the brittleness that lies at its core has a much better chance to come through.
This video was recorded live at El Tartamudo, a well-known Uruguayan venue favored by independent and emerging artists. It was recorded and edited by Cecilia Dulce.
It’s official: humankind is ending on the 15th of March, 2012, and the world will be left spinning like a loony balloon. Well, Facebook is going to bite the dust right there and then. Which for quite a handful of people is roughly the same thing. They won’t be able to spy on their exes, they won’t be able to insult others indirectly, they won’t be able to tag people in insalubrious pictures… they will have to learn to do without all that. Like my reclusive namesake in robes of white once wrote, “How dreary—Marbles—After playing Crown”.
Me? Since I’m a very balanced sort of fellow, and as calm as a fruit stand in New York, I won’t miss any of the things listed above. I will, however, miss befriending young bands there. My, the number of “musical” friends I’ve got easily offsets my “real life” friends. And my “real life friends” count seems to be dwindling, too. Last week, my two BFF (that’s “Best Friends Forever”, in case you don’t listen to Taylor Swift) said they were going to buy pizza, and they never came back! Sigh…
Well, I guess I’ll have to soldier on. And hold onto the remnants of the day, celebrating all these truly motivated bands I’m still getting to know through the Winklevoss twins’ main claim to fame. The most recent one is La Medio Siglo [The Half-Century], a Uruguayan unit that plays a very energetic mixture of rock and funk.
The band is made up of the communal mystique of Paul Higgs (guitar, vocals), Thomas Bate (guitar), Pablo Deferrari (bass) and Manuel Souto (drums), and its first EP has just been issued. It’s titled “Altos Con Rulos” [Tall And Curly], and it’s available for free on La Medio Siglo’s official website.
Leaving aside the title track (which is just a spirited way to start proceedings),
the EP has got four songs where teenage staples are articulated over music that is muscular and very well-written, with exciting dynamics and histrionics. I recall that the first time I chatted with Paul Higgs (the band’s guitarist and singer) my first remark upon listening to one of the cuts on the EP (which they were recording and mixing back then) was “Shit, you guys have got quite a swing!”. I actually said that aloud as I was typing the words down, and I swear I sounded as earnest as Samuel L. Jackson when he went “Snakes in the motherfuckin’ plane!”.Continue reading →
A new video from these great indie folks that make up Casablancas has just become available. The song is named “Please Don’t Be Like Me”. The first thing I thought when I watched the clip was of Donovan playing his very own equivalent to The Smiths’ “This Charming Man”. I could visualize such a thing frame by frame, in full Technicolor. All in the eye of my mind.
Yes, I know.
I should have directed “Pineapple Express” myself. Hollywood, so much to answer for…
Cool song, “Please Don’t Be Like Me”. A very playful melody, meretricious camera angles, wailing sirens in the background, terrific hairdos. Is there anything else you need? Sign on the dotted line now.
I wrote about Casablancas recently, in one of the zaniest posts MusicKO has ever known. And by all reckonings, that’s saying a lot. Catch up with the original review here. Don’t forget your parachute with the flag of the Rebel Alliance.
Uruguayan Reggae Band ELSANTOREMEDIO Playing Live.
Uruguayan reggae band ELSANTOREMEDIO has recently released its eponymous debut album, and it stands as the perfect soundtrack for listening to while walking down electric avenue. And then taking things higher, of course.
Originally formed in 2006, ELSANTOREMEDIO cites Black Uhuru, Peter Tosh, Jacob Miller, Max Romeo, Bob Marley, Aswad and Sly & Robbie as key references.
The band itself brings together two different generations of musicians, as about half of its members come from ‘80s band “Tablas de la Ley” (one of the earliest exponents of Uruguayan reggae), with the remaining members being from a younger generation of performers.
Current members of ELSANTOREMEDIO are Alejandro Lerman (keyboards), Javier Díaz (drums), Dario Silva (bass), JuanPe Lago (guitar), Tuco Lena (guitar), Nicolás Davis (guitar), Pato Chiva (percussion) and Bruno Terra (vocals). Special guests include Sol Bauzá on backing vocals and Oscar Pereira (who has also produced the record) on brass.
You can get the full album (11 tracks) at no cost here. And this is their MySpace profile.
The Blueberries Are Ernesto Pasarisa, Virginia Álvarez, Fede Hell And Santiago Jaureguy
In one of the poems he wrote during the final phase of his literary career, W.B. Yeats defined the inspiration which drives artists as the appetite for the apple in the bough that is the furthest away from reach. I find no better allegory for the musical vision of the many Uruguayans who hold both British and American performers as ultimate role models. The difficulties they have to face the moment they decide to make music in English in what is a Spanish-speaking country are tantalizing, including a coma-inducing lack of airplay and a barrage of misconceptions regarding what they really want to do. Onlookers claim that they are selling out, that they have no respect for Uruguayan culture, that they are posh bastards… nobody minces words. They are called all kinds of things.
There is one thing they are seldom called, though.
They are not called people with the ability to cast their aspirations beyond the logical barriers of the context they live in, and with the endurance to follow such aspirations wherever they might take them, and whichever obstacles they might end up facing. Which I think we have to agree is the truest sign of strength – the person who falls and picks himself up constantly is by far stronger than the one who never falls down.
I have already covered many artists who have chosen to sign in English in this country. Having written in English my whole life (and having gone as far as to publish a book of lyric poetry in English in Uruguay, no less) I’m naturally interested in what they do. If you read the blog frequently, you know the reviews I write about such bands usually revolve around the same set of considerations – while I profess a larger or lesser sympathy for what they do, I also tend to have reservations about how they do it. Sometimes I criticize their over-reliance on specific bands (to the point they end up sounding like cheap imitators), and other times the lyrics make me just disgruntle owing to the grammar violations and disregard for British/American naturalness they evidence. But I mainly end up the coverage of such artists remarking how much I appreciate what they intend to do, which is nothing short of an Herculean task: making people understand that one will go as far as his ability to dream and stand for these dreams can go, that only then can monotony be overtaken. Notwithstanding which shortcomings I might (or not) perceive, I always conclude that these bands are transcendental simply because of the motivational role they do play for people who have the certainty there’s something more to life than what the eye can see.
The Blueberries is a band that certainly does. Led by Ernesto Pasarisa (who sings, plays guitar and composes the songs performed by the band), they became publicly-known when they were nominated for a Graffiti Award for “Best Alternative Pop Album” just a couple of months ago. But the story of the band actually went a long way back, more precisely to the year 2007 when it was founded by Ernesto and some good friends to keep the music and essence of artists like The Velvet Underground, Bob Dylan, The Beatles, The Who, The Kinks, The Hives, The Libertines, The Strokes, The Moldy Peaches, Oasis and Blur well alive. Over the course of the years, they settled on their actual line-up which comprises Ernesto on lead vocals and guitar, Santiago “Saji” Jaureguy on guitar and backing vocals, Virginia Álvarez on bass and Fede Hell on drums. An indie band at heart, The Blueberries recorded a self-titled album that they chose to make available as a free download on their own site. It was produced by Max Capote, and mastered by Juan Branaa.
An Earlier Line-up Of The Blueberries Playing Live
As regards the way in which the band chose to market their music, this is what Saji recently told a Uruguayan portal:
“The dream of many an artist is to see his album on the racks of stores, and to be supported by a record company which has contacts along with logistic and marketing resources. That sounds quite tempting, but the truth is there are very few people willing to make an investment on emerging artists. Right now, everything revolves around placing an album in a rack and little else. If the album is successful, you will become best friends with the owner of the record company, and he will take your calls. If not (and that is something lots of bands we know can attest to) you will be moved down the pecking order, and nobody will lift a finger for you. And the thing is, few are willing to take a risk – the cost of recording an album is on the artist/band, and so is the cost of pressing it. Yet, the label is the one taking up to 80 % of what is earned just by placing it on a store.”
Thus, the band chose to make their debut album freely available to whomever wished to get it. And Ernesto wrote about 200 personalized emails introducing the band to radio stations, bloggers and the press. That’s how I became acquainted with their music. Continue reading →
There’s something that I have always wondered… just what did happen to Igor (the blue donkey that acts as Winnie The Pooh’s dear friend) to look so despondent? I mean, the poor thing looks as if a meteorite the size of Australia hit him squarely in the forehead and his brain fell out his left ear.
My theory is that poor old Igor listened to Tom Petty’s “She’s The One” album and his faith shattered. Like mine did when I listened to it. Because it wasn’t a proper album by any stretch. Petty had just two truly good songs which were “Walls” and “Angel Dream”. And to be fair, they were not just good – they were plain terrific. The things is, he built absolutely everything around them. The rest of the album is just the lapse of time that lies between these two songs. Or these four songs, to be more accurate – Petty included two different versions of each to pad the album out. And that was just atypical, not to mention disheartening. He had never done something like that before.
Well, last night it looked as if I was going to finally review “She’s The One”, and such a prospect was not really an upside one. Because I adore Petty, and I would hate having to pan him. Yet, a sudden twist of fate brought me into contact with the guitarist and singer from Suburbio [Suburb], a Uruguayan band with a tight, nice take on rock fusion. The guy’s name is Nicolás Sanchez, and he has just finished recording his first solo song. It is called “Lejos” [Far Away], and it is a nice acoustic track that stands as an interesting stylistic detour from his work with Suburbio. It is going to be part of his first solo album (which he is going to begin recording on November).
And around August, Suburbio is also meant to start working on its first album. (Listen to the band here.)
Below you can listen to “Lejos”. I have attached both the original lyrics and a translation into English.
Oh, and by the looks of it I am more likely to win the Wurlitzer prize than to review “She’s The One” now. I will review “The Last DJ” instead. Which is spotty by all reckonings. But at least it is an actual album.
LEJOS
Lejos de todo lo que no me hace bien.
Prefiero escaparme, no quedarme a ver
Lejos cierran las heridas del ayer
Pero las marcas no se borran de la piel
En la distancia encuentro aire otra vez
No siento el frío y me acostumbro a estar bien
Era verdad el tiempo nos hizo mal
Hay cosas que nunca se pueden arreglar
Era verdad el miedo nos hizo mal
Hay tantas marcas que no se pueden borrar
En mi balanza pierde peso lo que das
Estando lejos no se si quiera regresar
La soledad regala calma otra vez
No siento el frío ya no quema en la piel
Era verdad lo que brillaba ya no brilla mas
Algunas luces se terminan de apagar
Era verdad lo que quemaba ya no enciende mas
Algunas cosas no se pueden arreglar
Es que ahora entiendo no esta mal
Salir a respirar
Verme de afuera es ver lo que sentí
Es que ahora entiendo no esta mal
No querer regresar
Verme de afuera es ver como seguir
Intento seguir…solo intento seguir.
FAR AWAY
Far away from all these things that do me no good
I choose to run away rather that keep on watching
Far away yesterday’s wounds can heal
Yet the scars do not fade from your skin
In the distance I can find air once again
I feel no coldness, and to feel nice is OK
It’s true, time did us wrong
Some things can never be fixed
It’s true, fear did us wrong
There’s so many scars that you can’t erase
What you can give weighs nothing on my scales
I’m far away, and I don’t feel like coming back
Solitude gives me calm once again
I don’t feel that coldness which could burn my skin
It’s true, what was shining now no longer shines
Some lights go out once and for all
It’s true, what was burning now can no longer start
There’s some things that can never be fixed
Because now I understand, there’s nothing wrong
In feeling what I felt
To look at me from the outside is to feel what I felt
Because now I understand, there’s nothing wrong
In not wanting to come back
To look at me from the outside is to see how to carry on
I try to carry on… I just try to carry on
