¿Sueñan Los Lobos con Ovejas Lunares? (Lobo Está) – Uruguayan Independent Artist

Lobo esta disco descargar

(English version of an article first published on Cooltivarte.com)

It is a strange dusk. There are flowers from other springs, there is a world that spins around but a heaven that stands still, as if it no longer had a reason to exist, but which stands there for lack of a better frontier to aim for.

And it is a strange dusk simply because all which is connected with the end of feelings is strange. And you know the night will have a bosom that will expand like a century of memories, way beyond hope, deception, and each and every glimpse of mercy there could ever be. And way, way beyond that yesterday in which everybody dares to say “tomorrow”.

Such is the context of the album under review right now: “¿Sueñan los Lobos con Ovejas Lunares?” [Do Wolves Dream of Lunar Sheep?] by ¿Lobo Está?, the solo project of Gonzalo Saavedra, a musician from the City of San José who was a member of the now-defunct band Pueblo Viejo [Old Town]. The album (get it here for free) has been helmed by producer (and frequent instrumentalist) El Niño Que Toca Fuerte [The Child Who Makes A Racket], and it features Emiliano Pérez Saavedra on drums and Juan Chilndrón on bass. And Matías Gonzáles (from Vincent Vega) has a guest spot on the song “Viento” [Wind].

lobo esta gonzalo

All of the songs included on the album come together and then come undone throughout that strange dusk. They are there  at that time in which lots of things end, and many others have a chance to truly begin. Gonzalo himself says as much as “Entrego Mi Cuerpo Al Viento” [I Yield My Body To The Wind] starts playing:

Todo lo que fuimos no será nada
Comparado con lo que seremos

[All we have been will be nothing
Compared to what we will become]

When the CD begins spinning, the tone is more or less conciliatory. But the message mutates very swiftly indeed, as if all these things that have already come and gone became a clamp of angst, a hindrance to all these things the future could hold. Darkened rooms are opened, and truths are revealed. There are words which become unpronounceable, and reasons no logic could abolish.

“Entrego Mi Alma Al Viento” is surrounded by songs such as “El Túnel” [The Tunnel], “Mañana” [Tomorrrow] and “Invierno” [Winter]. In all cases, these songs partake of the insecurity that characterizes every ending, and reality is transformed in a way that creates either a pact of silence, or the longing for a vicarious exaction.

On “El Túnel”, a fear which is strafed both by ineptitude and by guilt grabs hold of the soul and refuses to ever let it go. To think about time all the time (“Mañana”) is the most untimely of duties. And doubts can vilify even the freest lives in a song such as “Invierno”, and the enumeration of a past which wasn’t that wearisome to begin with ends up sounding like a joke that nobody has even told Continue reading

Vincent Vega – Uruguayan Independent Artist

Vincent Vega's Debut Album

The matrix is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth. Because the truth is inexplicable, puzzling, mystifying. Well, it must be for this fellow who keeps on emailing me, asking why there’s never any guest posts on MusicKO, why it’s always me and the belly of the beast running the show.

OK, look. I did try hiring some folks to write stuff for this blog. I asked those who were interested to submit some capsule reviews, to see what they could do. And someone named Elbo Ludo sent three in. Two were a cut and paste affair, straight from the All Music Guide. The third and final one, now, was a short piece on a Uruguayan artist I’d never heard of in my life. That artist was named Vincent Vega. And that’s what this gentleman came up with:

Vincent Vega (pronunciation:[bjœːɳ ɵlˈveːɵs]): Named after actor Vincent D’Onofrio and Vega (the Spanish cage fighter from the “Street Fighter” franchise) Vincent Vega is a Uruguayan duo that had a chance to rise to prominence when they were commissioned by director Rob Marshall to write a song for the film “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides”. The resulting track (“Huevo Maraca”) could be heard as the end credits were rolling. But since the vast majority of the people in the theaters always left by then, the duo’s pyrotechnical contribution to the film went largely unheeded by audiences, unaware of the credibility of what they would have heard had they stayed around.

So much for having guests authors on MusicKO, then.

But the silver lining (because there’s always one) was that I became really curious on this duo that went by the name of Vincent Vega. Hey, I’m always up for anything that could send people tripping as much as to write a review like the one I just shared with you. And you know what? After having been to a couple of their gigs and getting to know the guys personally, I must say their compositions are not only tasteful but truly resonant.

At its core, Vincent Vega is a duo made up of Matías González and Mauricio Sepúlveda (Dr. Gonzo & Mr. Vega to friends and foes). They’ve been around since 2008, and in November 2009 they released an eponymous album, which you can download for free.

Vincent Vega (Mauricio Sepúlveda & Matías González) At A Recent Gig

Their influences include artists as celebrated as The Beatles, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Big Star and Wilco. And their main Uruguayan touchstone seems to be Eduardo Mateo, one of the seminal artists in the development of popular music in this country. Continue reading