Word: buitrago
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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From the very beginning, the Colombian band Aterciopelados (meaning "velvety ones") was everything most Latin music was not: politically minded, overwhelmingly feminist and comically ironic. The band, made up of front woman Andrea Echeverri and bassist/producer Hector Buitrago, mixes punk, surf guitar and ska with folky Colombian styles such as vallenato, a bouncy, accordion-heavy genre. And unlike her Latin pop cohorts, Echeverri eschewed make-up and belly-baring tank tops in favor of piercings and tattoos. When the band hit the Bogota rock scene in 1991, the establishment barely knew what to make of them...
...which debuts this week, catches Aterciopelados in even better form. The album is a seamless collaboration that marries Echeverri's hypnotic vocals with Buitrago's steaming bass lines and adept arrangements. The first song, Complemento, sets the tone. On the surface, it's a catchy love song, in which the narrator describes meeting her match - or "complement." But listen closely and you'll hear updated surf guitar paired with a subtle layer of those, yes, pan flutes. Echeverri's throatiness gives it an edge. The song is sticky in all the best ways...
...More political but equally grabby is Don Dinero, the Aterciopelados's stinging critique of society's obsession with money. Buitrago's groovy bass is mixed with blaring Mexican trumpets, a touch of reverberating accordion and some twangy sounds imported from India - all while Echeverri innocently croons: "Don Dinero how I love you/Don Dinero you are the main guy." In the same vein is Oye Mujer, a pop song that takes on the idea of the over-sexualized woman. "Sex object, piece of meat with a Barbie complex," growls Echeverri in the chorus. It sounds earnest, but it isn't. Both...
Aterciopelados COLOMBIA Singer Andrea Echeverri and guitarist/producer Hector Buitrago blend alt-rock, electronica and Colombian folk. Key albums: Gozo Poderoso, Caribe Atomico...
...tradition into the present. In Brazil, performers like Moreno Veloso are blending bossa nova with electronica; in Mexico, Nortec Collective, an organization of Mexican artists, recently released The Tijuana Sessions Vol. 1, a groundbreaking CD fusing traditional norteno (a kind of polka-esque music) with clubland techno. Echeverri and Buitrago are particularly proud that Gozo Poderoso was recorded in Colombia--and in Spanish. "Identity and roots are very important for us," says Echeverri. "We've been listening to English music all our lives without understanding all of it, so why can't it be the other way round?" Language barriers...