S/D: Music from Mexico

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.)