Artist: Gotan Project
Label: XL Recordings
Release: 2010
Length: 44.24
Rating: 4/5
Gotan Project’s eleventh year of existence has rolled around, and with it came the fourth studio album from the group that brought tango back to the globe and, with traditional touches of folk and jazz plus modern impulses of electronica and trip hop, brought it closer to the ears of the general music masses and made it popular all over again. In the new millennium tango needed a new face. A face embodied by Gotan Project! It’s a trio of capricious, unpredictable music cats and arrangers, the Cohen Solal, Makaroff and Mueller team, who saw it, reworked it thoroughly, grasped it in their bones and so very successfully hit on the fine, thin middle line, the lowest common denominator that picks the best from different genres and slots it into the basic rhythmic bed that tango understands!
So the artistic starting point is defined. With it come the basic musical frameworks Gotan Project move within, and the fourth album served up a fairly expected continuation of their unique story. These players, who dared to cover even a track by the untouchable Frank Zappa on their first album (that was Chunga’s Revenge, from Frank’s cult album of the same name), keep wading into the field of the radical, yet endlessly lovable!
The fascination with Gotan Project has always lain in the unpredictable. You expected the foundation to be the dance rhythm of tango, which you’d better not try out unless you want your legs wrapped in plaster, but what kind of musical mix the musicians would pile on top of that rhythm was always a sweet riddle with Gotan Project. And it still is. The album “Tango 3.0” offers exactly what all the fans of this group demand of it: how to pour different genres into a melting pot and come out with a compatible yet unique jigsaw puzzle, carried on tango’s springs.
“Tango 3.0” surprises right from the opener, which is a bluesy waltz! Here we get wind arrangements and a cutting guitar fixed on two chords, broken up by the unmistakable touch of the French accordion. The latter remains an indispensable ingredient of every Gotan Project CD! A combination we’re not used to from Gotan Project and haven’t heard until now.
From round to round the group layers individual sound samples that gradually build up mood and atmosphere. From inhales and exhales, in harmony with a robust rhythm, to echoes wandering through Parisian streets in the middle of the night, wrapped in thick fog. This rather unusual overture leads the listener on to more familiar territory. Rayuela is a touch brighter continuation, where a children’s choir takes the lead, while in the verse delicate jazzy interlacings of woodwinds, accordion and piano play around. The track is the band’s tribute to the novel of the same name, written by the Argentine author Julio Cortázar. Close your eyes and it’s not hard to conjure up the pulse of life in the metropolises of France and Argentina, especially when the familiar fragile vocal of singer Cristina Vilallonge appears, untouchable to the ear, tingling with the necessary hushed breath of eroticism. That’s woven into Peligro, where Buenos Aires comes alive in an instant with the listener! We relive something similar in Tu Misterio, which smells more “French”, except that a male vocal joins the track: the mildly “tipsy” Daniel Melinga.
In Desilusion, underpinned by a mild ska undercurrent from the electric guitar, it’s fascinating to watch how rhythm all by itself can dictate shifts in mood. Another Gotan Project trademark, which the new album carries out too. The playful La Gloria rocks us into the traditional sounds of French folk, where the melancholic melos of a splendid blend of accordion and strings reigns as the central figure of the track. A famous addition here is the commentary of Víctor Hugo Morales, a soccer commentator, who vividly turns the famous goal scream, with its stretched-out “oh”, into a “Gotan gol”!
There’s a whiff of mysticism in the air, of quiet mourning, despite some of the playful pranks in the accompaniment, led by the inexhaustible accordion throughout the album. An excellent union of melancholy, longing (Cristine’s vocal) and mischief (the accordion accompaniment) is vividly captured in the short El Mensajero. Another great “prank”, or rather a refined musical experiment in splendid fusion, we meet in mischievous rhythms of a laid-back ride, which, with a leading western motif on the guitar, even brush against the doctrines of Americana and rockabilly (Panamericana, De Hombre A Hombre).
The feeling, compared to previous releases, is that the musical arrangements packed into the tracks together on the album, very vivid, varied and dynamic, take the lead over the rhythms. Those remain pithy, strong and well-defined. As always. But this time it’s the dynamism of the arrangements of the lead motifs that comes first. Simply put, compared to the previous album “Lunatico” (2006), Gotan Project have matured even more in combining samples. “Tango 3.0” is the album that offers the group’s most mature work so far. With the new album Gotan Project are widening their artistic horizon even further through the expression of musical perception. Four years of break were hugely welcome for the band to sift out the best ideas from all those it had at its disposal. The juicy, unpredictable mix of Gotan Project’s unique musical image thus stays, with “Tango 3.0”, untouched once again. What’s more, it has climbed a step higher. It has kept all its recognizable attributes and once again splendidly given them meaning in a familiar-yet-unfamiliar artistic image.
Lineup
Phillipe Cohen Solal – electric guitar, bass guitar, keyboards, whistle, dub fx
Eduardo Makaroff – acoustic and electric guitar
Cristoph H. Mueller – programming, bass guitar, keyboards, tenori-on, vocoder and fx
GUEST MUSICIANS:
Christina Vilallonga – vocals
Gustavo Beytelmann – piano, string arrangements, conductor
Nino Flores – bandoneon
Rodrigo Guerra – serrucho (musical saw), mandolin
Dr John – Hammond B3 organ on track no. 1
Lina Kruse – violin
Romain Lecuyer – double bass
Franco Luciani – accordion
Daniel Melingo – vocals and clarinet on track no. 7
Victor Hugo Morales – soccer commentator
ORCHESTRA:
Gustavo Beytelmann – conductor, string arrangements, wind arrangements
Cyril Garac – violin
Corine Auclin – violin
Noelle Barberau – violin
Veronique Bohn – violin
David Braccini – violin
Michel Dietz – violin
David Galoustov – violin
Nicolas Gros – violin
Phillipe Huynh – violin
Francoise Bordenave – viola
Cecile Brossard – viola
Sebastien Levy – viola
Lionel Allemand – cello
Aurelie Saraf – cello
Etienne Samuel – cello
Cecile Audebert – harp
Claude Egea – trumpet
Denis Leloup – trombone
Andre Villeger – saxophone
Remi Sciuto – saxophone
CHILDREN’S CHOIR:
Sandro Rumolino – choir conductor
Emilia Fullana
Maria Makaroff
Miguel Makaroff
Maylis Mueller
Noela Mueller
Pablo Munoz
Ines Salamanca
Maria Paulina Spucches
Mateo Rodriguez
Rafael Rodriguez
Production
Phillipe Cohen Solal, Christoph H. Mueller & Eduardo Makaroff
Track list
1. Tango Square (3:46)
2. Rayuela (4:27)
3. Desilusión (4:24)
4. Peligro (3:57)
5. La Gloria (3:47)
6. Mil Millones (5:49)
7. Tu Misterio (3:21)
8. De Hombre a Hombre (3:25)
9. El Mensajero (2:35)
10. Panamericana (4:33)
11. Érase Una Vez (4:20)
