Bajafondo at London Royal Festival Hall (Photo: Georg Schroll)

Originally named Bajo Fondo Tango Club, Bajofondo are known as pioneers of “electronic tango” music. Founded by Argentine and Uruguayan musicians, they aimed to create a mixture of electronic music with Latin roots and, as a result of their talent and ingenuity, succeeded in creating a style that was completely different from anything known at the time.

Incorporating a variety of sounds and instruments the band is currently made up of Uruguayan musician Juan Campodónico, Uruguayan DJ Luciano Supervielle, Uruguayan VJ Verónica Loza, Argentine bandoneon player Martín Ferres, Argentine violinist Javier Casalla, Uruguayan bass player Gabriel Casacuberta and renowned Argentine composer Gustavo Santaolalla – now a two-time Oscar winner in the category of best film soundtrack.

When Santaolalla and Campodónico first met, Campodónico was playing with the Uruguayan band ‘El Peyote Asesino’. Making samplers from the vinyl records of acclaimed tango composers such as Astor Piazzolla, Eduardo Mateo, Susana Rinaldi and Alfredo Zitarrosa the band produced a sound that was a fusion of hip-hop and tango.

Both Santaolalla and Campodónico wanted to make a sound that transpired the urban life of the Río de la Plata and shortly after their paths crossed, formed Bajo Fondo Tango Club. Initially more of a project than a band, the group began as an association of musicians, producers and singers composing and experimenting with different types of sounds.

Their first album, launched in November 2002, was called ‘Bajo Fondo Tango Club’ and featured several well-known musicians such as Jorge Drexler, Adriana Varela, Cristóbal Repetto, Adrán Iaies. Didi Gutman and Pablo Mainetti.

The album was the first production of record label Vibra – a label owned by Santaolalla that aimed to invest and investigate different types of Latin American styles with electronic music.

Selling over 300,000 copies worldwide it was a huge hit, winning the Gardel Award for best electronic album in Argentina and the Latin Grammy for best instrumental pop album.

Bajafondo in concert in Portugal. (Photo: Mário Pires)

A second album, ‘Bajofondo presenta: Supervielle’, followed in 2004 and featured guest musicians Daniel Melingo, Uruguayan hip-hop band ‘Contra Las Cuerdas’ and Jorge Drexler.

Band member Luciano Supervielle mixed the tango music of composer Piazzolla with the Camdombe music of Eduardo Mateo, and the excited shouts of sports journalist Victor Hugo Morales to win the band a second Gardel Award.

After focusing for a while on their individual careers, the Bajofondo members launched a remix album in 2005 that included new versions of songs taken from both their first album and the solo career of Supervielle.

‘Bajofondo Remixed’ won a third Gardel Award for best electronic music album, and was recorded in Buenos Aires, Montevideo, Córdoba, Paris and New York with the participation of Uruguayan, Argentine and European DJs.

‘Mar Dulce’ followed and has remained Bajofondo’s most recent LP release. Recorded in 2005 in the cities of Buenos Aires, Montevideo, Los Angeles, Tokyo and Madrid, the album reflected the band’s cosmopolitan influences and revealed a more mature sound.

As with their earlier albums, a huge number of musicians and artists from around the world were invited to contribute to the album including Elvis Costello, Nelly Furtado, Spanish rapper Mala Rodríguez, and Japanese bandoneon player Ryota Komatsu. Uruguayan musicians Lágrima Ríos and Toto Méndez, Argentine Soda Stereo member Gustavo Cerati and Bersuit keyboard player Juan Subirá also feature.

In recent years, the band have toured through several countries, playing the big name festivals in electronic and world music, such as Roskilde in Denmark, The Cactus Festival in Belgium, Pirineos Sur Festival in Spain and the Pohoda in Slovakia, as well as shows in 15 other countries.

They have also toured two times through the United States, where they had the honour of performing in New York’s Lincoln Center and, in 2007, played in London at the Barbican Centre, with additional dates in Brussels, Amsterdam and in Rio de Janeiro.

Genre: Electronic tango

Dates Active: 2002 -2007

In their own words: “We don’t like the label ‘electronic tango’, because we don’t consider what we produce to be either tango or electronic. We believe we make music from Río de la Plata, and if you wish to make music that represents the actual sounds of places like Buenos Aires and Montevideo – at least for us – genres such as tango, murga, milonga and candombe are obviously going to be present.” – Gustavo Santaolalla.

Most Famous Song: ‘Pa’ Bailar’

Famous for: Being a pioneer in Latin American music and electronic fusion.

Best to listen to: When you feel like dancing to upbeat Latin rhythms.

“I know you don’t read the news, but it’s friday, I know this.

So I’m going to educate you today.

‘Cause it’s friday, you ain’t got no (real) job,

and you ain’t got shit to do – till 1am when you head to Pacha Jet!”

Did you enjoy that opening? It was a contribution by over-enthusiastic reader  Mychael H.

Great job Mychael! I’m gonna put it right here on the refrigerator door. And those who didn’t like it, take it up with him.

Now here’s everything you need to know:

Transgender people throughout the country celebrated that once again equality comes first. (Photo/Wikipedia)

• This week Congress seemed to remember that they are supposed to do something and passed two very important laws. First, the “Gender Identity” law, which seeks to provide citizens the power to “freely develop their personalities in accordance with their gender identity,” and the right “to be treated according to their gender identity.” This, of course, includes their DNI, which will have to state their gender of choice.

• The second law passed is the “Dignified Death” law, which grants terminally-ill patients the “right to express their will concerning the refusal of surgical procedures, artificial reanimation or life-support treatment.” This excludes, however, euthanasia and assisted suicide. Pretty fucking good, eh? Pretty fucking good… (except for religious conservatives, who are running in circles as we speak, horrified by society’s continuous moral decay). So while in the Northern Hemisphere half of the United States is kind of entering the 21st century and North Carolina is going back to the Dark Ages, Argentina breezes in to the 23rd century, maybe.

•  And now onto the Brits. They are pissed, you know? And rightfully so, since that Malvinas “Olympics” ad was kind of uncalled for. Sure, it poses a legitimate claim and it helps maintain the Malvinas sovereignty debate alive, but it also brings a political debate into the Olympics ecochamber, which we all know is verboten, even though it has been happening since Nazi Germany, when Jesse Owens (a black guy!) won a gold medal and Adolf Hitler pissed his pants in anger. So the political cognoscenti vowed revenge against the Argentine population and shot back with their ultimate weapon: this.

• Are you kidding me? From all the things you could use to mock Argentina you chose to make fun of… tardiness? I mean, this country is comedy gold and all you could think of was that? OK, at the risk of being deemed a traitor by the Argentine population, let me give you some advice on what you can make fun of next time you want to mock Argentina:

• What Cristina looked like before surgeries.
• Maradona’s 1986 infamous “hand of God” goal.
• The couple who married under the Maradonian church.  And yes, that is an actual wedding. Not a joke.
• Argentina’s Nazi past. Next time you enter the Luna Park stadium to enjoy some random concert, keep in mind that 74 years ago, the place looked like this. And that’s not a joke either.
• Mayor Mauricio Macri‘s cringe-inducing, embarrassing rendition of Queen’s “We Will Rock You”. And yes, that actually happened.
• The fact that these sideburns were president from 1989 to 1999.
• The fact that every 80′s movie in Argentina was a ripoff from a Hollywood blockbuster or a hit American TV series. Here are some excerpts of the local versions of: “Alf“, “ET“, “Ghostbusters” (or “Thriller”, if you will), “Airplane!“,  and Robocop. Also, I may or may not have one or more of those movies on DVD.
• Finally: please don’t send me emails saying “Legitimate claim? Bla bla bla islands are British bla bla bla self-determination.” I already know all that and I still don’t care.

• President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, of course, was offended at the British for being offended. Here’s her speech about it. Just so you know, she doesn’t say anything she hasn’t said a million times before. She rants about how creativity is a lot better than bombing other countries. A false analogy that I personally loved.

• Sure, now that the YPF expropriation bill has been passed no one in the country cares about it anymore. But the European Union has a long memory, and even though this whole thing happened like ten days ago the political confederation refuses to forget, and this week they warned that retaliation is imminent. Whatever it is they do, let’s hope it’s better than that fucking “tardiness” ad.

• Another dead body found in the Bosques de Palermo area. You sure you still wanna go jogging there? Because it’s all starting to sound a little too much like a scene from The Silence of the Lambs.

• Here’s another photo you can add to Vice-President Amado Boudou‘s Infamous Hall of Infamy, back from when he was a DJ for the fashion world. How he ended up in politics, we may never know. The photo joins other unforgettable classics, such as “Tongue Vs. Tongue” and “Drunk in my underwear.” Enjoy!

• “But this has no information value!“, you say? Oh please. As if you really came here every Friday to be informed.

• Are you one of the millions of Movistar users whose life was seriously endangered for several hours when the company’s service went down a couple of months ago and people couldn’t update their Twitter accounts? If you are not, then skip this, this doesn’t concern you. If you are, then congrats! The wait is over and after many days of great injustice and abandonment, you’re being reimbursed $10 (pesos, not dollars) for all the trouble caused. Yay, Capitalism.

• Are you one of the millions of Claro users whose life was seriously endangered for several hours when the company’s service went down on Wednesday and people couldn’t update their Twitter accounts? If you’re not, then skip this, this doesn’t concern you. If you are, then you’re fucked. Yeah, that’s right. Claro outsmarted Movistar this week, and after many users complained about a massive service disruption the company blamed the Macri administration, accusing some City workers of accidentally “severing a fiber optics cable.” Sure, the Government is again considering a fine against the company, but they have warned that this case is “different” because it somehow accused Macri of fucking something up *wink, wink*.

• Are you a Personal user? Then watch out, you’re next.

• Next time you brag about how cool and elegant it is to live in Recoleta, remind me to bring this up so I can call you a destitute and shut you up for good.

• This guy died, and even though you never heard of / cared for him, it was a pretty big deal because he was one of Argentina’s most beloved cartoonist. Honor him by at least clicking on that link. You don’t even have to read the story, just click on it so you can at least pretend you care.

• Fame hath no glory! Last year it was Justin Bieber and the baseless, shameless accusations that he had
  

  This is the (possible) rapist Wachiturro, not to be confused with the other five Wachiturros who look exactly the same. In fact, I'm not even sure this is the one in trouble, but this is the only photo Wikipedia had to offer, so fuck it. (Photo/Wikipedia)

  impregnated one of his fans, which not only is ridiculous because Justin is like, the best guy in like, EVER and he would never do that, but also because he’s still like fifteen years away from producing sperm. So now, of course, it happened to one of the country’s youngest, brightest talents: Wachiturros smokin’ hot member DJ Memo. Mr. Memo was arrested (and later released on bail) in Santiago del Estero last Sunday after allegedly trying to rape a 13-year-old, who happened to be the daughter of a police officer. Lies, all lies! Also, probably true.

• By the way, considering that two months ago another Wachiturro was arrested before boarding a plane in a Chilean airport for cleverly making a joke about having a bomb or something stupid like that, I guess this means the boy band is now down to only four members. Come back in a few months when two of them are killed while trying to rob a bank and the boy band is downgraded to a duet.

• Also, that former playmate that caused a stir after appearing at a Mexican presidential debate last Sunday is, of course, Argentine.

• In the non-important news department (football), the Argentine Football Association (AFA) has announced a series of changes in their tournaments that I really don’t give a flying fuck about. But since you probably do, here’s some (probably inaccurate) info:  Starting in the 2012/2013 season, the new Argentine championship  tournament (thanks, Twitter nitpickers) will be divided in two tournaments, each one of them containing 19 rounds. The Apertura and Clausura tournaments will be re-branded “Inicial” and “Final” tournaments, and their respective winners will clash in a final match that will decide the fate of humanity.

• I don’t mean to brag, but I wrote that whole paragraph by myself, no help! OK, I had help. I pretty much stole the whole thing from here and just translated it. Whatever.

• Now here’s an idea that I’m sure is gonna go far: the AFA, that lugubrious nest full of backstabbing vultures, is “studying” the implementation of a possible new system labeled “AFA Plus” aimed at stopping “the power and influence of the barra bravas (or ‘hooligans’) in the Argentine football.” The idea is to register every single football club member and whoever has a history of violence will not be allowed into the game. The anti-hooligan movement was sparked by Independiente president Javier Cantero who said he was sick and tired of violence and is leading a personal crusade against them. Good luck with that! I mean, have you clicked on that Wikipedia link for barra bravas? Despite their absolutely hilarious names in English (“The heavy of the Port”, “The Drunkard of the Stand“), these guys are blood-thirsty goons that will not hesitate to kill you if you stand in their way. And considering that according to that Wikipedia page there’s like a million of them, stopping them means no more audience. Can you imagine? It would be like a dream come true (for me).

• Oh, shit. Here we go.

Los Automartin in action: music represented by colors and shapes. (Photo: Agus Carini)

They turn out the lights.

“Vamos?” he says.

“Sí,” she responds.

Through the darkness an airy, synthesizer-based tune begins.

In time with the music, white squares are projected onto the wall. The squares make lines. The lines become shapes. The shapes start spinning and changing colour.

In front of the projected images, computer screens light up the faces of a man and a woman. Both are wearing button-up shirts, pants and boots. Both of their heads are bouncing to the beat.

These two people make up Los Automártin, a musical and visual performing duo based out of Buenos Aires.

Fully booked when visiting Berlin but relatively unknown in Argentina, Los Automártin are getting set for a show at home in the capital this month.

The pair, 31-year-old Martin Duarte and 26-year-old Sonsoles Romero, say creating and playing this music is their “passion.”

Martin Duarte, minutes before a show. (Photo: Agus Carini)

“We’re doing something that we would like to see ourselves,” Duarte said. “This was the idea of the project. To create something that we would like to see on stage, musically and visually.”

Having worked together for two years, Duarte says he was the assistant director and she was art director when they met on the set of a “terrible” movie. Lifting his left hand to show his ring, Duarte adds that they fell in love, married and now produce their light and music show together.

“We call this our first child”, he said with a laugh.

Their show, a labour of love, mixes visual elements with sound to create a mood. The content, both video and audio, are all original.

“VJs kind of do what we do, but they often play images from other people,” Romero said. “We make all the animations, the videos, the production. We think of the music we’re going to do, the design.”

Their melodies flow along common chords and songs build on musical themes.

The visuals that accompany the music move in time with the tempo and occasionally with the melody. Often based on rainbow colouring, the pictures range from geometric patterns to belly dancers in kaleidoscope.

The couple both work on the music together. Romero creates the artistic visuals that move on screen with the songs, and Duarte works on production of the presentation.

Although relatively unknown in Argentina, this type of show is more popular in Spain, Duarte said. The two both noted that while in Berlin for a month and a half in 2010, their weekends were booked solid.

“Here [at parties], it’s more, ‘Boom-ch boom-ch boom,’” he said. “We like more of a melodic presence, that there’s a melody. The music has more air. There’s more room for filling and listening from the spectator.”

Their show is a mixture between visual elements and sounds to create a mood. (Photo: Agus Carini)

Working in offices during the day, Duarte and Romero spend much of their free time working on new songs and visual shows together.

“Typical office from 9am-5pm – typical work,” he said. “Work is the method for the entire project, perhaps something that supports our project. But, for example, we create all our own music – we’re not DJs. And perhaps, if we didn’t have this work, it would be much harder, and we might have to be DJs or something, because this can’t support us.”

The pair are heading off to Berlin again in 2013, taking off in February and spending three months playing their production and seeing the sights.

Have you ever wondered where would be the best place to go out on a Saturday night? Where would have the type of music you like, the kind of people you want to be around, if there’s going to be too crowded or too empty and the exact location of the club in question?

Well, wonder no more people of Buenos Aires: GEOclubbing guide has come to Argentina! Using the Facebook platform, the web page basically takes all the information on the events posted by promoters on Facebook, packing all this data together in one place.

In the words of director Dave Blue: “Every single event listed on the site comes directly from Facebook. All updates made by the promoter, and all RSVPs made by clubbers, are automatically synced between Facebook and GEOclubbing. This requires no time, effort, or cost on the part of event organizers, and allows anyone to get a fast and simple overview of all clubbing events with just a few clicks. In other words, GEOclubbing complements Facebook’s ability to answer ‘What are my friends doing tonight?’ by using the same information to answer ‘Show me all Trance events in Amsterdam next weekend’.”

Blue has been in the clubbing scene since 2007, when he started DJing and throwing parties while at university in New Zealand. He says he had “always been kind of a geek”, mapping all the clubs around the area where he lived. He had what he calls his “eureka moment” in May of last year, when he realised he could use Facebook to upload events from all over the world without having to develop face-to-face relationships with the local nightlife players. After 15 months working in the technical groundwork, the website was finally launched in August of this year.

The user selects one of the five cities in the world that the company is present (Buenos Aires, London, Sydney, Hong Kong and Amsterdam) and then can check the dates to the most popular nightlife events put on by order of people attending it on Facebook. It works even better if you have a profile on Facebook because you can allow the GEO application into your account and see which one of your friends are attending which parties.

“You can of course ask your friends or chat up promoters, which is still a good idea, but I want to know all of the parties, and which are truly hot – not just being hyped by somebody. And I want know this very quickly for any given night so I can focus on enjoying the experience rather than fussing around with my computer,” states Blue.

It also has innovative tools such as a sound (so you can hear what kind of music the DJs on the event’s line up will play) and video (to show you the club’s atmosphere).

A map with all the events that will take place in the city is also available and are marked by dots – the bigger the dot, the more people will be attending it.

Keeping this in mind, Blue likes to interfere the least possible on picking which events are worthwhile getting on his nightlife guide, since there’s the online RSVP factor, measuring the popularity of the event. That doesn’t mean that he doesn’t appreciate the efforts of promoters who are just getting started and don’t have much money to invest in parties. “With one of these questionable events a few weeks ago in BA, I actually checked out the Facebook page of the promoter and saw that at one of their previous events they decorated the venue by putting playing cards on the mirrors around the bar. So this nice simple touch showed me that the promoter is actually making an effort, and I’ll spend some time to ensure their future parties make it onto GEOclubbing.”

In his opinion, what makes the BA nightlife scene stand out from other cities in the world is by far the great amount of “free agents” (meaning actual people) there are working in promoting the nightlife instead of generic brands or clubs that do their own promotion and advises the clubbers: “Just as you would cling to a good hair stylist, once you find a good public relations in Buenos Aires, make sure that relationship is tight because this is how you get access.”

Future plans for GEOclubbing guide are to expand to all global cities, adding Rio de Janeiro and Mar del Plata soon to the list. The company also has plans to promote events in other Latin American metropolis such as São Paulo, Lima, Santiago, and Bogotá.

DJ Nelson in concert (courtesy of DJ Nelson)

As the crowd pressed forward and drinks went flying, the previously docile atmosphere disappeared and was replaced by something akin to panic. Dreads, nose-rings and a haze of something more herbal than your average Marlboro Light abound, I had expected a more relaxed feel to this reggae get-up. “Is this the most popular reggae star in Argentina then?” I asked the rather suspect looking man to my left. “He is the only reggae star in Argentina,” was my reply.

A moment later, the curtain rose up to reveal a lone man with a turntable, looking slightly uncomfortable. The room is silent. “Are you ready for DJ Nelson everybody?” he asks cautiously. The verdict is unanimous. People are jumping up and down, wringing their hands, craning their necks to get a look at Nelson in the wings. Like a naughty schoolboy that knows he’s pulled one over on the teacher, a grin spreads over the lone man’s face and the records begin to turn. Out tumble a chaotic medley of guitar riffs, keyboard music and thumping drums. Soon enough, the man himself jumps, or rather projects himself with the precision of a ballistic missile on to the stage, moving so fast you can’t see where his limbs are going or what they’re doing. The room is engulfed by a roar of delight, and the show begins.

DJ Nelson is a man of small frame but big personality; I haven’t seen an act work the crowd in quite the same way he seems to be able to. His almost impossibly long dreadlocks swinging about his person, he flies from one end of the stage to another, high fiving, starting mexican waves, blowing kisses. The music is wholly unexpected- fast, catchy, even frantic at times, with a bit of rapping here and a bit of melody there.

DJ Nelson at the ready (courtesy of DJ Nelson)

Starting out just ten years ago in western BA where he grew up, DJ Nelson is the pioneer of the Estilo Jamaiquino en la Argentina. With many a record under his belt- some of which have been featured in the likes of ‘Dread Mar 1′ and ‘Buenos Vibraciones Volume 2′ – he is arguably Argentina’s most viable answer to Bob Marley. Indeed, his first CD released in 2006 was called ‘Jamaica Argentina’ in tribute to the homeland of reggae. February 2009 saw him release another, more personally titled record; ‘Señor DJ Nelson’, and he has been touring the country ever since.

His message? He insists that themes of social justice and equality play an important role in his music, and they do pop up every now again in his lyrics. His record “Libre” for example pays homage to Maximiliano Kosteky and Diego Santillán, two protesters killed by police in 2002. “Good will triumph over evil in the end”, he sings. Most of his songs however fall into the strictly tongue-in-cheek bracket, and it is perhaps fitting to end with his summing up of his own career; “Nelson is my name. And Nelson is my game.” Go to see him if you can- he’s great.

Actor and radio DJ Fernando Peña died yesterday from cancer of the liver at the age of 46. Death has always been on the doorstep for Mr Peña, who declared eight years ago that he was HIV positive. In his radio show ‘the Parking Metre’ which was broadcasted from the clinic where he received chemotherapy, he often joked about his “bad blood”.

Despite living in a state of imminent death, Mr Peña lived life to the full: “Of course I care that I am dying, but it is more important to have a good life.” Once, when he nearly lost the battle to pneumonia, he took the valiant step of stopping all cancer treatments whose side effects prevented him from living the life he wanted.

His desire to live, and to bring to life fictional characters was reflected through his work in the theatre, where he was protagonist of ‘Dialogue between a prostitute and her client’. He also became the protagonist of his own reality in a documentary that filmed him struggling with two fatal diseases. Ironically, it was his way of removing the drama from death, and making his illnesses better known and understood.

An artistic, passionate character, Mr Peña often mused about his own suicide, but the reality is he was no coward; he faced cancer until his body could take no more. “People who live a passionate life die young. This is how I imagine my suicide: driving in a car at 50 mph, happy and distracted, until I come crashing into a pillar.” Death did not find him distracted, but very much alive in the present moment, fighting until the very end.

Mr Peña’s acting career took off on an aeroplane where he worked as a steward. It was always something that he had dreamt of doing and his lucky break came when he was announcing American Airline’s emergency procedure. Mr Lalo Mir, an established radio DJ, recognised the voice that would succeed in captivating the listeners of Argentina and took Mr Peña on board. Mr Peña said that he would have liked to have shouted, “the whole world knows me”, to his mother, a woman who never believed in her son’s talent.

The radio DJ confided how he did not believe in happy endings and he often felt misinterpreted when people accused him of being provocative: “I would love to stand on the Obelisk and tell everyone: ‘Let me finish, but listen to what I have to say. I am a romantic… and my provocative nature is ultimately beautiful.” An expected death, but a sad one nevertheless.