Clan Kangrejo – El Significado
Oh, you’d better get ready for a new Latin Boom, one of rock music! I’m certain that it’s coming! You see, pop culture trends are just like empires. Sure, they do rise and inevitably fall. But in order for them to reach their full potential, they feed off the vitality of those involved.
If you think that your favourite Anglo-American rock bands seem a little jaded lately, that’s because you’re probably right. But it’s only natural. Excitement is a natural thing. It cannot be fabricated. Ecuadorian group, Clan Kangrejo, have the kind of creative verve that a band either possesses or does not.
I am happy to report that Clan Kangrejo are far from the only ones. Sheltered from the expectations of what’s left of the music industry’s commercial model applied by the big record labels, Latin rock groups are developing at their own pace and in strange, unexpected ways.
Little of Clan Kangrejo’s “El Significado” is typical. There are Latin grooves, yes. But those start, stop and blend with pop beats seamlessly. There are lyrics about self-exploration. But the Spanish words are surprising, avoid cliches. And the musicians can play. But they don’t make their abilities the star of the show. No, the performance serves to put “El Significado” on stage and before audiences. The New Latin Boom is coming, and it’ll include electric guitars.
KACIMI – Lune Noire
Being in a successful band can turn awfully boring if you’re not careful. A few daring twists are required. Some risk-taking can be immensely helpful. Avoiding repetition is a topic that all band meetings should include.
KACIMI may be a band that sounds like your radio transmission has picked up a signal from outer space. But that’s not true of the vast majority of successful, well-known musical enterprises.
Once groups or pop artists do something successful it is assumed that they’ll try to repeat the same thing throughout their career. Audiences will keep buying as long as the band manages to keep familiar enough with the sound, and enticed enough to buy the same set of songs for the 10th time in a row.
KACIMI’s “Lune Noire” sounds surprising. It sounds like a radio signal from a far-off land where the commercial-first rules of pop music have not permeated. And that’s not all, merely because this is a French group. It’s the way that the artists blend sounds and use clever production tricks to make “Lune Noire” sound as if it’s been removed from time itself, like it doesn’t belong to any era. It sounds like music that might exist in an alternative universe, one in which the pop stars and their managers didn’t win!
