Not to be mistaken for the photographer – though the group did use his name as a sort of homage – the Argentine pop group Man Ray are popular throughout the country for their perky, upbeat songs.

A group along the lines of New Kids on the Block, but with a female lead, their songs might be lacking a certain kind of depth but are the kind of music a person either loves or hates – depending entirely on their mood.

The Argentine duo that form Man Ray (Photo courtesy of the band)

The group formed in 1987 when Hilda Lizarazu, from the province of Corrientes, joined forces with Tito Losavio to make up the integral duo that became the backbone of the group. Laura Gómez accompanied on bass guitar, while Paul Buratti played drums. Together they recorded and released seven original records between 1987 and 1999: ‘Man Ray’ (1988), ‘Perro de playa’ (1991), ‘Hombre rayo’ (1993), ‘Aseguebu’ (1994), ‘Piropo’ (1995), ‘Ultramar’ (1997) and ‘Larga distancia’ (1999).

But the band wasn’t together for the entire stretch of time. There were years of financial difficulties when – between 1989 and 1991 – the two leaders separated to play with other bands. After 1991, the group came into enough funds to keep playing and put together another album. They kept going until 1999, when they eventually went their separate ways. Since that time, the lead singer Lizarazu in particular, has gone on to become a successful independent artist.

Besides achieving great sales success in the 90s, Man Ray also toured most of Latin America. They had their big introduction to the music world on 27th December 1988, when they played at the Festival of Democracy on Av. 9 de Julio in front of 150,000 spectators gathered to see popular Argentine musicians like Soda Stereo, Spinetta, Fito Páez y Los Ratones Paranoicos. Afterwards, the band added countries such as Chile, Peru, Ecuador, Uruguay, Paraguay and Mexico, as well as the United States and Spain, to their tour roster.

During the height of their popularity, the band also had the chance to play along with some big names, like Phil Collins and Guillermo Piccolini. While their music follows simple themes, Lizarazu’s voice is airy and pleasant, and the tunes are generally cheery. That said, the perkiness can be a bit jarring if you don’t want cheery backdrop to your day.

If you’re looking for a more modern take on their 80s and 90s hits you’re likely to find it. Man Ray’s iconic songs, such as ‘Extraño ser’, have made easy cover subjects for other musicians like Suéter and Chilean singer Nicole.

Genre: Pop/Rock

Dates active: 1987 – 1999

Famous for: Iconic popular songs that are easy to sing at karaoke

Most famous song: ‘Caribe Sur’

In their own words: “There is no further progress to be made in art, like making love; there are simply different ways of doing it.”

Best lyric: “Though I try, I cannot forget / To be close to you is happiness / Strange it is, I’m so alone, worshipping you.”

Best to listen to: On a lazy Saturday afternoon, when you’re cleaning up the mess from the night before and need something a little bubbly, but can’t handle more champagne.

Mompox with all the members of the band: Ale Wonder, Fermin Echeveste, Maxi Russo, Juan Tobal, Maxi Cataldi, Ezequiel Spinelli and Ignacio de Andrés (courtesy of Mompox)

Mompox is the music you’d expect Argentine surfers to put on when resting their muscles after having braved the cold ocean waves.

Tags on the band’s official homepage read: Buenos Aires, electronica, folk, pop, psicodelia, rock, Argentina, indie pop, mompox, triangulo.

Triangle? Yes. Triangular is in fact is the name of their latest release (2011), the shape being one of the only decipherable labels given by the band.

Yet, if it is easy to guess what the three vertexes of the triangle are (rock, folk and psychedelic electro pop), the feel-good harmony they encompass is far from being easily-definable.

Three synthesisers recreate the ludic psychedelia, the complexity of the vocal harmonies and the unexpected rhythm variations of the early surf music. It is reminiscent of MGMT, Arcade Fire, Devo, Flaming Lips and the Beach Boys, all at the same time.

Many tracks are short epiphanies that last less than two and half minutes, songs that seem to be put there to transmit only ‘good vibrations’.

Despite singing in English and defining themselves as an “electro-popabilly-italo-judio” ensemble on their Twitter account, deep down they cannot be more Argentine.

The band saw the light in Buenos Aires, during the hot summer of 2008, when Ignacio de Andrés, Juan Tobal and Ezequiel Spinelli took on the unique quest to achieve the musical perfection they believed appeared in the United States during the 1950s and 60s.

Mompox, was therefore created with the explicit purpose of reviving the era when pop music was eventually submerged and carried towards new shores by a psychedelic wave whose traces are still visible in today’s electronic experimentations.

The recording of ‘Treehouse’ by the parallel band tRilaUs first put Mompox members together with jazz guitarist Tomás Becú, acrobatic pianist and accordionist Alejandro Goldberg, and a versatile DJ-drummer Maximiliano Cataldi.

Needless to say, all these names were known in the scruffiest underground clubs of Buenos Aires, pervaded by the thick rancid smell of Quilmes and wooden floors spotted with dark Fernet stains.

Mompox - Big Umbrella (courtesy of Mompox)

Ignacio de Andrés and his friends already had more than 20 tracks in mind when they finally locked themselves up in a room to record their first studio album, ‘Mompox & The Big Umbrella’ (Panda, El Pie, Mandarina).

With The Beatles, David Bowie and the Kinks in mind the band worked through the summer of 2009. The result was independently released and distributed at the beginning of 2010, and featured the appearance of more than 20 special guests.

‘Mompox & The Big Umbrella’ is a babel of electronic rhythms, psychedelic sounds, folk, pop, orchestra, rockabilly, jazz and bolero that blew the mind of many concert-goers in the capital’s most famous venues: Niceto Club, Teatro Margarita Xirgu, Outsider Festival, Café Vinilo, La Castorera and Plasma, to name a few.

According to the official version, the first 1,000 copies of the original edition were sold out by the end of November, thanks to songs like ‘The Sisters Klein’ (a homage to vaudeville with klezmer airs, where a banjo accompanies the lyrics, and tuba and clarinets duet with a piano), ‘Mary’ (an oneiric and almost Gregorian piece where voices are melted by the smooth sound of the accordion) and ‘Robbery’ (a demonstration of how chameleon-like music can be, thanks to its unique blend of Brit-pop, rockabilly and gypsy tunes).

Mompox are still alive and kicking, and this week are presenting their latest album, ▲. The band will play a series of exclusive concerts at La Fabrica (for a maximum of 30 people and by invitation only).

“We play the whole album. You come inside and you have go through the whole journey, whether you want it or not,” they once said of their live shows.

Genre: Surf-electro pop music

Dates Active: 2008-present

In their own words: “The prolix psychedelic band and the ‘retro-futurism’ that hooked Fabio Alberti up […] We ended up being in love with ourselves.”

Most famous song: “Perfect Service”

Best Lyric: “Don’t want to freeze, don’t want to get old/ Don’t want a bad dream, don’t want to get lost / I’m on the rooftop ready to fall /Looking for a rush before I get old. ” (Friday Night)

Famous for: Being one of the least definable bands on the Argentine musical panorama: a sound that you might as easily find in some hippy festival in San Francisco or in a dark basement in East London.

Best to listen to: Their CDs are an invitation to sit down, close your eyes and simply go back to the ancestral act of listening to a musical artwork from the beginning to the end.

Pez in concert (Photo courtesy of Pez Facebook Page)

Pez is an old hat on the Argentine rock scene; they’ve been there and seen it all before, but they’re still playing almost 20 years later.

The band formed in 1993 when Ariel Minimal, a seasoned player in the Argentine counter-culture scene, joined up with Alejandro Alez and Pablo Barbieri, musicians he had played with at the end of the 80s. It started off as “hard experimental rock”, and in 1994 they began to make themselves known on the Buenos Aires scene. In October of the same year they released their first album, ‘Cabeza’.

Since then the band has used a revolving-door policy – new musicians have come and gone, and the band has fluctuated between the original trio and a five piece, adding instruments and dabbling in different genres.

These days the band is a quartet comprised of Minimal (the only original member left) on vocals and guitar, Gustavo Fósforo Garcia on bass guitar, Franco Salvador on drums and percussion and Leopoldo Pepo Limeres playing keyboard and organ.

As it is constantly changing, it’s rather difficult to put your finger on what the band’s sound is and, well, that seems to be just the way they like it.

From their experimental rock origins, they have tried some tango influences, adopted punk sounds and even given psychedelic rock a whirl; they don’t like to stand still.

“Over this long period of time we’ve shown that Pez is much more than just the sound of one album, our history has been forged over the course of all our albums,” Minimal explained to the music blog Rebvelados.

He goes on to say that, while AC/DC know exactly who they are and what they want to play “we don’t, so we’re always trying out new things.”

One thing you could say however, is that their music is unmistakably Argentine –part of the rock nacional scene – and Minimal’s lead vocals do provide a musical anchor in their eclectic back catalogue.

Minimal cites Frank Zappa and the recently deceased Argentine musician Luis Alberto Spinetta as two major musical influences, while his guitar hero is Queen’s Brian May. His vocals have a strained quality that won’t necessarily appeal to everybody but do fill the songs with the sort of energy and emotion you’d expect from such a music fanatic (he has been playing the guitar since he was nine).

Having released 12 studio albums over the course of 19 years, the band has a prolific work rate and pride themselves on having done it all independently, without the meddling influence of big record companies.

From the very beginning the band set up their own label, Azione Artigianale, which they used to edit and release their own music. Then, due to the popularity of the band, other musicians started recording with them too and Azione Artigianale became a music label with a twist. “It has no president or executives; no art director and no boss. It works as a surreal cooperative where every artist works to keep his own project alive,” the band said of their project. The ethos fits perfectly with a group that has organically evolved over time, embracing each new period in their history as long as they continue to enjoy the music.

“We honestly don’t know what it would have been like if we had worked with a big company, but this is the way we like doing it,” the band told Montevideo Magazine. “It’s always been like that, only working on what we like doing.”

As long as they keep thrilling crowds in Argentina, it looks like they’ll keep doing what they love for a while longer.

Genre: Rock nacional

Dates active: 1993–present

Famous for: Making the Buenos Aires underground rock scene popular across the country

In their own words: “We just like playing music”

Most famous song: ‘Para las Almas Sensibles’

Best lyric: “Our wasted bodies fall in love on the fields of the unconscious”

Best to listen to: When you wake up with long hair and leather trousers and have toast and mate for breakfast.

Most Argentines don’t know who José Alberto Iglesias is. But mention his pseudonym – Tanguito – and eyes light up.

Considered one of the fathers of Argentine rock, Tanguito is one of the great names behind the Rock en Español movement.

Tanguito performing

Born in 1945 in Caseros, a northwestern suburb of Buenos Aires, the musical master flunked out of school. Despite his efforts in apprenticeships such as gardening, Tanguito was made for the guitar.

By the age of 17, he became a mainstay at dances in the neighbourhoods of Mataderos and Flores. There, Iglesias picked up his nickname, because he danced rock ‘n roll style in a zone filled with tango lovers.

In 1963, Tanguito became the singer of a group called Los Dukes and made his recording debut. He left the band after a suggestion that he should make a solo album for RCA, but the plan fell through.

After his time in the suburbs, Tanguito headed to the big city and started spending a lot of time at the Recoleta establishment La Cueva. Located at Av. Pueyrredón 1723, the venue came to be known as the birthplace of Argentine rock.

Tanguito and his group of bohemians also used to frequent La Perla del Once, a late-night dinner or breakfast joint. In their washroom, the rock legend penned his first popular song – ‘La Balsa’ – while his friend Litto Nebbia added musical elements.

Tanguito also went by another name: Ramses VII. He was fascinated by the Egyptian pharaoh Ramses II and was enchanted by chords with dominant sevenths.

And so, it was Ramses VII who wrote some of the first popular Spanish rock songs in Argentina – specifically ‘La Balsa’, ‘Amor de Primavera’ and ‘Natural’ – according to the name attached.

The man became a rising star as the co-writer of ‘La Balsa’, which became famous when the band Los Gatos sang it. He recorded a single in 1968, which slumped because of poor marketing, although several Argentine artists were covering his songs, like ‘Amor de Primavera’ during the same year.

Until this point, Tanguito was using marijuana and pills like many of his peers. In mid-1968, however, he took to injecting amphetamines.

In 1970, he agreed to do a record with the label Mandioca. After a few skipped sessions, he finally showed up and recorded his only solo album, which was received with critical praise.

Despite his role as one of Argentina’s great musicians, Tanguito spiralled out of the musical sphere and into addiction and mental illness during his final years.

By the end of 1970, he’d caught the attention of police and was arrested several times before being sent to prison in 1971. After being charged with leading a drug gang and being diagnosed as criminally insane, he was sent to the José T. Borda Neuropsychiatric Hospital. There, he was subjected to insulin shock and electroshock therapy for his addictions.

Rather than recover, his mental health deteriorated and, in May 1972, he was sent to Penitentiary Unit 13 of the same hospital – a unit for for criminal psychopaths.

At dawn on the 19th May 1972, he escaped from the hospital. Although he reached the Pacífico train and hoped to get to his parents home in Caseros, he did not make it: at 10:50am, the legend fell on the tracks and was hit by an oncoming train.

Despite the tragic end to his life, Tanguito’s legacy lives on in his music. His songs continue to be covered, and there are movies and shows about his life. As the magazine ‘La Bella Gente’ once said: “Tanguito managed here, possibly for the first time, to take all the drive, the authenticity and the feeling that is used to sing in the streets of Buenos Aires.”

Genre: Argentine rock

Dates active: 1962-1972

Famous for: Being one of the pioneers of Argentine rock

In his own words: “All of a sudden you’re in a place with a guitar, as I was. There are 20 people, in a group or not – but they are there. I never said the group was mine, and only now do I learn that.”

Most famous song: ‘La Balsa’ or ‘Amor de Primavera’, both of which were popularised by other bands covering them.

Best lyric: “I have to get a lot of wood / I have to get it, from anywhere / And when my raft is ready / to be leaving the madness / with my raft I will go to wreck.” – La Balsa

Best to listen to: On weekend afternoons when your roommates are taking a siesta and you’re sipping mate / When you want something to chill your spine, but keep your mind occupied.