Brian Storming (Courtesy of Brian Storming Myspace)

Musical talent and creativity often run in the family. J.S. Bach’s father and uncles were accomplished musicians. Prince took his name from the jazz trio in which his father played. Yngwie Malmsteen grew up surrounded by family members with musical gifts.

It’s no surprise, then, that Duncan Toth, singer and composer of orchestral act Brian Storming, would be the son of Los Gatos’ bassist Alfredo Toth.

Further validating the genetic argument, the music of each displays a special affinity for the sounds of psychedelia. Decades after Los Gatos’ glory days, Duncan and Brian Storming have taken things to a more whimsical, pop-infused vista than the harder-edged group Los Gatos did in the 60s and 70s.

First conceived by Toth as an audiovisual project, Brian Storming combines atmospheric sounds with film projections to create an audience experience that is fully immersed in sensory-perceptual fantasy. Influenced by the ‘Sergeant Pepper’ era of bands like the Beatles, the imaginations of the likes of Tim Burton and Lewis Carrol, and early orchestral movements from Disney and Hollywood, Brian Storming catapults the listener into a blurry, rippling, and enchanting state of mind.

In 2003, the band appeared live at Creamfields festival, returning again the following year, and have since toured tirelessly throughout Argentina over the last decade. The recording of their first album, ‘The Fantastic Voyages of Brian Storming’, began in 2002 and was completed as a 10-track LP released in October 2005.

Quickly gaining recognition as a unique ensemble of sound, sight, and imagination, Brian Storming was selected to open three shows for Coldplay in February 2007, at the Gran Rex Theatre. In November of the same year, they were chosen to open for Björk in a string of Buenos Aires shows.

The band has been noted for its do-it-yourself ethic and organically independent position in Argentina’s shifting musical scenes. With lyrics sung in sleepy, whisper-soft English, Brian Storming’s sound awakens an impressive range of sensations: wondrous, experimental, and vulnerable motifs of innocence flirt with the mildly terrifying and pensive numbers recalled from Disney films such as ‘Fantasia’.

Occasionally criticised for choosing to sing in English, Toth responded in a 2010 interview with Página 12: “Singing in English is an ingredient of the atmosphere that we create, with film, music, or literary references such as Lewis Carrol, Jules Verne, and Edgar Allen Poe…It is a choice: every band and every artist makes a decision when creating something that has to consider what came before it.”

Despite pressure to enter into the castellano tradition of Argentine rock, Toth has acknowledged Brian Storming’s debt to bands such as Almendra while continuing to pursue their own peculiar, magical vision.

Following an EP in 2008 (‘Brian Storming Avec L’enchanting Device’), the band began work on its most ornately textured and visually evocative release to date: 2010’s ‘Brian Storming and the Illustrated Guide to Fantasie’.

Over 12 tracks, ‘The Illustrated Guide to Fantasie’ sparkles and shimmers with a modernised big band aura, particularly suited for a live setting.  With incredible skill and sonic detail, Brian Storming manages to sound both studied in its inspirations and shrewd in their expression of an avant-garde aesthetic. They are as steeped in 20th century orchestral beauty as they are in the punchy accoutrements of contemporary pop music—definitely worth checking out.

Genre: Orchestral Fantasy

Dates Active: 2002-Present

Famous For: Incorporating film and music into a visionary performing act

Most Famous Song: Stupid Little Drummer Boy

In their own words: “The idea is simple: to continue making records for a very long time.”

Best Lyric: “We’ll be the wheels of never-ending dream/so let the unexpected ride begin” (‘1920’)

Best to listen to: Never on drugs…

A small boy in a café at the Asociación Cristina de Jóvenes rests a violin on his shoulder. He places the bow onto the strings, closes his eyes and begins to play out the notes of The Beatles’ classic ‘Yesterday’. From behind him other children with string, woodwind and percussion instruments join in the song. This is the image of Las Orquestas Infantiles y Juveniles of Buenos Aires; a city government run scheme which gives children from impoverished backgrounds the opportunity to receive musical training in hope of a better future.

The orchestra in full swing (Photo: Andy Donohoe)

Honing Skills

Sponsored by the city government’s Ministry of Education, the project has now grown to extraordinary heights with the aim of fostering “social inclusion”. The project has helped around five thousand children in Buenos Aires in the past with an education that they have been able to apply in a variety of circumstances. Currently, over a thousand children are involved in the scheme across 16 orchestras from nine different neighbourhoods.

Part of a team of coordinators, Marcelo Zanelli highlights the benefits to which the children are exposed. He says that the organisation “believes that music improves many aspects of their lives; from their relationship with other children to their levels of concentration”. Their philosophy relies on the ideas that through dedication and practice, the children involved in the project will hone the skills they need to combat a system that so far has failed them.

According to figures calculated by INDEC more than one in ten people are living below the poverty line in Buenos Aires alone, alongside as many as more than one in four in other areas of Argentina, underlining the need for social projects that offer a solution to unaddressed problems. Whilst teaching music may not be the immediate answer and has drawn scepticism in the past, it is a way of giving poorer children the tools they need to work their way out of a stereotypical mentality that all too often spells a life of crime fuelled by poverty.

Fighting Insecurity and Social Injustice

Marcelo agrees with the projects ability to improve children’s lives as it fosters solidarity. Giving children instruments and teaching them about harmony in the musical sense extends into their everyday lives and helps to combat insecurity.

Double bass players (Photo: Andy Donohoe)

“[Bajo Flores] is a neighbourhood which has a lot of stigma attached to it, a neighbourhood that is frowned upon by others.” He does not address the challenges that the barrio faces with naivety, but in fact acknowledges the dangers of the area. However, he is quick to add that poorer areas should not be characterised by stereotypes and that through education they are trying to “break the ideology that music is for the elite.”

Therefore, through a cultural medium, the project aims at closing the gap between different social groups which causes insecurity and conflict. Marcelo and the team of music teachers, as well as trying to remove stigma from underprivileged neighbourhoods in Buenos Aires, also aim at dismantling the idea that classical music is part of an ivory tower institution never to be touched by those that come from villas. Exposure to classical music by artists such as Mozart is taken as seriously as tango and folkloric music from different parts of Argentina and South America, thus embracing a wealth of cultural backgrounds.

With recent events that have sparked a wave of xenophobia across the city due to the Villa Soldati evictions and killings, fostering such multicultural education amongst Argentine youths is paramount. Marcelo believes that “the orchestras serve a purpose to teach children that music isn’t limited to what they might hear on television or the radio,” and he goes onto say that “many are children of emigrants [from other South American countries] and it is important that we play their music” in order to encourage social cohesion and equality.

A Song of International Success

The success of these methods is not isolated to Argentina. Across South America, other social programmes that teach music are being implemented with similar success rates. Before giving their concert, the children of the Bajo Flores Youth Orchestra were told an encouraging story about a famous Venezuelan conductor that learnt music from a similar government project. El Sistema as it has been dubbed by its members is now celebrating 35 years of success in changing the lives of at-risk youths in Venezuela. One such example is Lennar Acosta, who before his initial involvement in Venezuelan El Sistema at the age of 17 had already visited a correctional facility for young people no less than six times. Now he earns a living at a musical institute and has performed several times in the Teresa Carreno music hall, a prized venue in Venezuela.

A young player concentrates on his violin (Photo: Andy Donohoe)

The scheme in Argentina has successful followed the Venezuelan example. It has taught children more than music, but a set of values, which have led them to bright careers and futures in and outside of the music industry. The scheme is designed in a way to consistently keep training students from beginners to an advanced, professional level. In the past, Argentine youth orchestras from Retiro have performed as a support group for Queen to a stadium full of people, creatively reinterpreting ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’; an example which gives the young children of Bajo Flores hope for what could lie ahead for them.

With dozens of similar schemes existing across the world, the Argentine example has a cause to believe in. At the project’s heart is “the spread of knowledge” as Marcelo puts it, which can enact real change. In reference to the villas, he believes that “they aren’t the same neighbourhoods, the children walk with a cello or a trumpet and it changes the landscape,” which works as a symbolic image of a more socially just Argentina.

Photo by Beatrice Murch

It’s Saturday night and you don’t know what you want to do. You haven’t had enough drinks to go for a big cheesy night on the tiles, you’re not feeling the heaving reggaeton and Palermo is starting to blur into a haze of early morning bar encounters. If you find yourself in this little pickle, hop in a cab to Abasto for ‘Clásica Y Bailable’.

The night is hosted by local radio station FM La Tribu 88.7 at Uniclub. Uniclub is a short distance away from the usual big nightspots, but this area is increasingly becoming more popular for people looking for something that isn’t your usual potter around Palermo or San Telmo. As such, the nights they have also offer something a little alternative.

‘Clásica Y Bailable’ features a five-piece band playing drums, keyboards, guitar, cello and clarinet and when they say Clásica, they mean Clásica, in every sense. The drummer keeps the crowd jumping, whilst the musicians throw down their own mixes of anything from The Police to Michael Jackson to Mozart – yes, the classical and the classics. There was even a Bach’s B Minor Suite (the one that everyone had on their Nokia telephones at the beginning of the Noughties) played out over a reggae beat and a dance version of the Super Mario Brother’s theme tune. A dash of klezmer kept the crowd kicking its feet up through the night.

Photo by Beatrice Murch

When the band takes a break, the sound system takes over, keeping everyone dancing with some more traditional salsa music and cumbia beats, with some balkan tunes thrown in. If you’ve got your mojo going, you can keep dancing all night. Otherwise, take a break to grab a drink from the bar. Uniclub is on three levels, so there is plenty of space to sit and relax with the eclectic crowd of twenty and thirty-somethings.

So if you want to shake your thing, but want something more than pure thumping beats, head to ‘Clásica Y Bailable’ on a Saturday. You can groove to any style you want and the live band provides enough variety that you can watch with a drink, like you would at a gig. Don’t be fooled by the idea of a stuffy live orchestra – this one will rock your musical world. They will take the music of your childhood and sex it up. They will make you shake to the music of the school disco. And that’s before the bass clarinet comes out.

‘Clásica Y Bailable’ is on every Saturday from 11pm at Uniclub, Guardia Vieja 3360. Entry costs $15. See www.uniclub.com.ar or www.fmlatribu.com for more details.

 

Photo by Nina Kourea

Sitting in a café watching tourists throng the pedestrianised cobblestones of calle Defensa one Sunday, I noticed three young chaps carry a piano by.

So used, was I at this point, to the strange goings-on of San Telmo’s weekly market, I barely batted an eyelid.

Later on, I noticed a crowd had gathered down the road, and behind them recognised that same piano – surprisingly in tune for its ordeal – was part of a full ten-piece Tango orchestra.

This was Orquesta Típica Imperial, and being a bit of a sucker for Tango, I stopped to listen.

“It’s lovely to hear the next generation bringing Tango back, but I do wish they’d dress better,” the lady in front of me lamented to her sister.

I stifled a giggle as the cellist, who also had heard the comment, winked at me. It was obviously not the first time people had said such things.

But looking at the group of musicians in front of me, I had to admit the ladies had a point. The double bassist was sporting flared jeans and aviator sunglasses, and the cellist a beard and hair typically described as ‘the Argentine Jesus look’.

Like it or not, Tango has moved with the times.

Later Matilde, one of Orquesta Típica Imperial’s bandeon players, told me of course – the music has had to evolve to remain popular, and the kind of smart clothes the women were lamenting the lack of were simply the fashion of the time when Tango was most popular. Men would go out wearing suits and ladies in dresses. It wasn’t related to Tango, it was simply the fashion of the era when Tango happened to be popular.

Nicolás, another bandeon player, interjected, “often people want to reminisce about the golden age of Tango, and think if we dress the same and play the same music they can turn back the clock. They are romantic memories of a time that has gone. People are not accustomed to seeing someone who is young and dressed like me play a beautiful Tango.”

After Tango’s boom in the milongas (Tango dancehalls) of the 1940s and 50s, the movement died off, making way for rock and roll and other musical genres that had come into vogue. However, by the early 1990s, Argentina’s flagship musical style started making a comeback. The new orchestras that came out of the revival had very much changed with the times – playing classic Tango melodies with a modern twist.

 

Photo by Nina Kourea

And Orquesta Típica Imperial are emphatic in that they are not trying to recreate anything. They do play a lot of old Tango songs – only around a quarter of what they play are their own compositions, but that is balanced by only a quarter being well-known Tangos. Half of their chosen playlist is generally old songs that are beautiful compositions but not so commercially well-known.

They admit this is not an easy path to take, and perhaps dressing in a more traditional way and playing more crowd-pleasing, famous Tangos would have more easily lined their pockets. However, the drawback would be they would have to play each song a certain way to make it a crowd-pleaser.

But as independent musicians they relish the freedom of being able to play things their way. They also believe this way the music can grow and develop in a natural way. As violinist Federico says: “We do not sound the same today as we did five or three years ago – the music is evolving as the group evolves and comes more and more into its own style.”

However, they tell me it is hard to find places with good acoustics that fully show off the sound of the group, so the orchestra has taken the innovative step of making their live performances more of a ‘show’, to make them more entertaining.

“We live in an era where the visual is super important. Things that are not taken in by the eyes are often not taken in,” Nicolás says. As a result they feel that to make their shows more popular, without falling into the tourist-trap style of tango, they need to be able to offer something else.

 

Photo by Nina Kourea

Matilde is enthusiastic to unite a variety of artistic styles – creating a theatrical dance performance being one idea – but for now they are instead projecting images onto a screen behind them as they play.

“Soundtracks are chosen for films by putting music that goes well with the image. Well, we do it the other way round – we choose images that go well with the music,” Matilde says.

But having been along to one performance, and noticed the projected images were powerful, political images, which really seemed to make a statement, or give the group some sort of an alignment, I had to ask why they had selected such clips.

“Are they combative, you mean?” Nicolás asks, laughing. “Well, for some people Simon Bolivar is a hero, for others he is not – you are never going to please everyone. We choose real things that have something to do with Argentina – poverty, Che. Images of Latin America too. We also have one about Salvador Allende.”

 

Photo by Nina Kourea

“But we have also done one with Maradona,” Matilde adds. “Each person picks their choice, and I suppose they are all similar in a way, in that we are all similar in what we think. Music is not just an entertainment – it contains artistic ideals too. Sometimes that ideology can be to say ‘I’m not getting involved in politics’, but that in itself is a political statement and ideology. Even getting up in the morning is making such a decision – you are deciding to get up, to conform. And anyway, showing a clip telling how a democratically elected leader in Chile was assassinated is not at all a left-wing ideology – it is a fact and history. Allende was killed. He was elected and killed and a military junta took power.”

The orchestra have been together for nearly ten years now, and despite the makeup of the group changing numerous times, they are starting to get known and play for bigger crowds. They played in Plaza de Mayo for the 30th anniversary of the coup that led to the last dictatorship, on 24th March 2006, and also take one overseas tour a year.

These tours are an essential way to earn money, as although the idea of their music being free for all to hear is appealing, it doesn’t put bread on the table.

Matilde tells me how they are heading to the UK for the first time this year, and how they are excited about playing there.

It might be a good idea to leave the Maradona projection at home for that leg of the journey though…

Go and Orquesta Típica Imperial play!

They also play every week on Defensa during the Sunday market during the early afternoon, where you can also pick up their latest CD which came out last year.

For more information please visit www.orquestaimperial.com.ar

Photo by Kate Stanworth

Charly Pacini, the viola player for the most rockin’ tango orchestra in Buenos Aires spoke on behalf of the group for an interview with The Argentina Independent.

When did the orchestra start?

The Orchestra started in 2001 in the midst of the social and political whirlwind, out of a desire to make tango, pure and exclusively as a group project and not to take advantage of the ‘for export’ movement that was and continues in Buenos Aires.

How did you unite with the group?

I got together with the group because a friend who played in the orchestra told me they needed string instruments and so I went with my viola and stayed.

Has it always been the same group of musicians?

The group was formed in that same year, 2001. We always maintained the same lineup, four bandoneóns, three violins, a viola, a cello, a stand-up bass, a piano and a singer. Some of the musicians have changed but we have always been 12.

How would you explain what kind of music you play?

We make tango with the traditional formation of a typical orchestra from the 1940s, but we don’t dress up as ‘tangueros’, we live and play tango as we feel it now. Our sound is violent and hard but without losing respect for the style.

Which orchestras do you get your inspiration from?

Many…Pugliese, Troilo, Di Sarli, Goñi…but we are influenced by music beyond tango, primarily rock, also contemporary music, jazz, argentine folklore. When we play we all want the orchestra to sound like the Pugliese’s orchestra and Nirvana playing together.

What type of crowd do you guys attract?

Our audience is pretty diverse, old tangueros, people who know a lot about tango, but mostly young people between 20 and 40 years old. 

When I went to see you I saw that there were lots of girls, do you guys have a faithful set of groupies?

Photo by Kate Stanworth

Orchestras and rock groups always have had faithful fans that followed them and we continue that tradition, the fact that they are mostly women is just a coincidence between rock and tango.

Was there a definitive decision that the orchestra was going to be all men?

We are like a gentlemen’s club, in which we make music and all the other things that gentlemen don’t do.

In the history of tango was there or are there typical orchestras with men and women?

Generally, the woman was the singer in the orchestra and yes there have been female orchestras. In actuality it’s common to see girls playing the bandoneón, the violin, the piano and the base.

Is it difficult to organise practices and meetings with so many people?

No it’s not difficult, the orchestra always had a set schedule of practices and meetings, exactly because we are so many it’s necessary to be organised and coordinated.

The orchestra, because it functions as a cooperative, makes us bosses and employees at the same time; therefore we have to be responsible and organised all the time.

Four years ago I saw you guys playing in the streets in San Telmo and now you have your own place. When and why did you guys establish it?

The Club Atlético Fernández Fierro (CAFF) was founded on 1st May 2004. The CAFF was born out of necessity for a place to practise and at the same time to show people what we were doing with our music.

What affect did Cromañon have on CAFF?

The original idea was that the CAFF could be a place for music, painting, photography, film and theatre. Like the majority of places, cultural centres, clubs and theatres we suffered from the government’s paranoia that cultural activities were dangerous and we had to close and then get the legal permission which was pretty difficult.

Even though you have your own place, do you guys still perform in other venues?

We are in the Alternative Music Festival circuit and the 7^th December we will be in the Buenos Aires Personal Fest alongside the hip-hop glories and Argentine and foreign groups. That will give us a very diverse audience that never has even seen a live tango orchestra.

Photo by Kate Stanworth

Have you guys gone on tour?

Since 2003 we have toured Spain, Italy, Germany, Holland, France, Austria, Sweden, Belgium, México, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Uruguay, the US and Iceland.

Do you have any anecdotes from one of the tours?

The fact that in one week we were in New York and then Iceland is an anecdote in and of itself. Two places totally different and at the same time marvellous.

In San Francisco, California I went to a milonga and there was a giant projection of you guys playing. How do you feel knowing that people are listening to your music so far away from Buenos Aires?

That’s good, we always wanted people to listen to us and to identify with our music and that doesn’t have distance or borders.

How many CDs have you recorded?

We have three official CDs. ‘Envasado en Origén’ (2001), ‘Destrucción Masiva’ (2003), ‘Mucha Mierda’ (2006), and a pirated/official CD recorded live in Lichtenstein, Vivo en Europa (2005).

Are you working on the next one?

Yes, now we are preparing the next CD for 2008 in which the majority are new compositions and a few classics.

What are the orchestras plans for the future, another tour, maybe a movie…?

In the beginning of 2008 we will go to Brazil, Chile, Ecuador and then we will continue as usual in the CAFF. We are also going to edit our first video clip, which will be ready in January.

Orquesta Típica Fernández Fierro plays every Wednesday at 10.45pm at Club Atlético Fernández Fierro, CAFF, on Sánchez de Bustamante 764 in the Abasto. Tickets are $12. They also play on Saturdays at the CAFF at 11.45pm. For more information www.fernandezfierro.com