S/D: Music from Mexico

i like el gran silencio best of all, but also love the big banda stylings of banda el recodo, the mex-rap of control machete (esp the underrated 'uno,dos:banda'), and j.venegas and molotov and cafe tacuba and enanitos verdes and all them peoples. also, yeah, duranguese, even though my favorite band in that style is from chicago! and yeah yolanda perez and los tigres even though they are californians, furthermore, there are always texas acts like intocable & freddy fender & texas tornadoes. and my favorite rock en espanol album is 'resurrection' by the chris perez band; he was selena's husband, and this album contains (he said again) an amazing spanish cover of "alone again, or"....

Not at all. Just not digging most of the recommendations at all. But then again, the first post of this thread admitted that this was a very broad question.

http://www.sequenza21.com/index.php/278#comments

"If your idea of contemporary Mexican art music is still Chavez and Revueltas, you’re so far out of date that it’s not even funny! I can’t catch you up on composers from the 50’s through the 90’s; Google will have to help you out there. Some names to explore might be Manuel Enríquez, Mario Lavista, Federico Ibarra-Groth, Marcela Rodríguez, Hilda Paredes, Hebert Vázquez, Germán Romero, Gabriela Ortíz Torres, Juan Felipe Waller, Julio Estrada, Mauricio Beltránand. (Feeling out of the loop already? Then get busy…)
Those are all fine and respected composers, surely, but where I want to take you is to an even newer fringe of younger Mexican composers and performers, experimental and electronic musicians and improvisers, who happened to have set up a loose confederation on Myspace.com. We’re talking the NEW new, musicians whose influence lists always include Ferneyhough, Lachenmann and Murail right along with my generation’s heros like Xenakis, Ligeti and Feldman; where Zorn and Merzbow are placed as equals with any of those previous names; and where electronic and digital means are are taken for granted as stock-in-trade, right along with all the traditional instruments."

Go to the link for more (although I'm not much of a Zorn fan so this may not be my thing, plus how "Mexican" is it, hah)

"Iván Naranjo: Composer, his 2002 string quartet Uno, played by the Arditti, was just released on a new Mode CD.
Wilfrido Terrazas: Flautist and composer, seems to be a large part of the “glue” bringing these groups of musicians together.
Isaac de la Concha: Composer, improviser, teacher, with no less than three (!!) Myspace pages, one devoted to each aspect.
Alexander Bruck Santos: Violist with a fondness for everything from Feldman to free improv.
Adnán Márquez-Borbon: Saxophonist and improviser.
With a number of other musicians (who you’ll find listed in their personnel of the pages), this posse does duty in one or more of the following experimental ensembles:
Generación Espontánea
Ensamble Áspero
ArtoEnsamble
Colectivo Kaoss

Los Enanitos Verdes: Them I don't get at all. I bought their most recent album at the Tower liquidation sale for $5, and I couldn't bring myself to listen to it a second time. There was absolutely nothing on it I wanted to hear again. I don't have that kind of reaction to hardly anything.

Probably not what Merlindude is looking for but "Maria Daniela y su Sonido Lasser" are ace. A bit like a cross between Le Tigre and Peaches doing Hi-NRG. Their parent band is Titan, who've been around for ages and also worth checking. Lots of interesting stuff on the "Nuevos Ricos" label.

Plastilina Mosh (from Monterrey) started out as Beastie Boys imitators ("Nino Bomba") but have evolved into something more interesting. Worth checking out.

Spent sometime on myspace yesterday listening to these people -- basically Zorn doesn't come round till you go on that saxophonists' page, and then only some of his stuff has some of that -- he quite likes his electroacoustic improv, too.

There is one piece by the arto ensemble that basically reminded me of the Dead C -- of their tiredness, I suppose. One Bordon track had those Mego-ish submerged sounds. My fave out fo all of this so far ws Collective Kaoss 10 min laptop noise thingy - cpl of unexpected sounds, cpl of false endings as I now dimly recall - even then I ended up with a feeling I'd be bored by a second listen. Aspero seemed stuck on the sounds they were making; Espontanea ws improv and that one track had lots of energy, but you do wonder whether that'll all go in a cpl of years as they get bored of the applause. Naranjo's and Terrazas are ok-ish, I suppose it's gd to hear all this if you can't get performances of Lachenmann or whatever. I think the former probably needs time and distance (as young-ish composers often do) to distill whatever they've learnt into something of their own. Ivan may even have to discard all of that. Usually I do look out for any composers who are stretching the capabilities of their instruments, etc., or some kind of inventiveness on the instrumentation, or some weird combination where you think there'll be some remarkable payoff at a concert, and I couldn't hear that. Whereas that Argentinian composer that Steve picked out last week definetely sounded more promising in that respect.

Although of course this is all based on samples.

Saw the 'radical' word a cpl of times w/out any interest shown at engaging in anything from their own background. Are noises enough?

Here's more cut & pasted pr on what they're up to (and what their lyrics are all about):

Set to Take Place March 23 In Las Vegas, The BMI Awards Gala Will Coincide With The Planned March 27th Release Of Los Tigres Del Norte’s New Album - Which Will Continue The Group’s Role As The Leading Voice Of The Immigrant Community By Addressing Topics Such as The Immigration Marches, The Planned Border Fence & The Recent Mexican Election.

Look For Los Tigres To Preview Their New Album With February Tour Dates In NEW YORK, WASHINGTON DC & ATLANTA.

The Atlanta show was on the 10th

Thanks to all!

great also: GRUPO EXTERMINADOR, which is like Los Tigres except funnier and smuttier-minded and more self-consciously parodic. jenni rivera's new one sounds like it's going to be a banda classic, and i like the new yolanda perez more every time i hear it. which is a lot.

Tacuba are back in the studio at present, and working with Santaolalla again thank God (I thought Cuatro Caminos was basically a Spanish-language Flaming Lips album; I fucking hated it and I hope they've fired their drummer).

It's mostly all norteno which can kind of wear you out if you're not a cowboy hat wearing dancer ($6.50 a beer, $60 a ticket, $10 to park--there were some folks there with kids in strollers for this big night out with the legends). They mixed in some boleros, waltzes, sappy ballads and rockish numbers though. The sound system had the bass and drums booming, and the accordion was well mic'ed also, but you couldn't hear the acoustic guitar-like bajo sexto.

http://universalmusica.com/TronodeMexico/Biography

Duranguese group Trono de Mexico just did a big DC show. The gig got no crossover attention--The promoter has a Spanish language facebook site I found (where he mentioned advertising the gig on a Spanish language AM radio station).

3ballmty have a debut album coming out, but it sounds like their attempt to go pop isn't going to quite hit the mark (not for me anyway--I'm less sure of how they will do with sales):

http://www.cduniverse.com/productinfo.asp?pid=8628413

I was all excited about buying this, but after listening to these clips and having heard the title track before, I'm not so sure.

(Anyway, unexpected medical bill today so I am probably not going to be buying any music for a while to come.)