The infinite tango

Posted Friday, November 23, 2007

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iving in Miami, it's not hard to imagine the setting that spawned the tango in Buenos Aires before the turn of the last century -- an accidental mix of immigrants from different countries seeking fortune, safe harbor, or maybe a place to hide; Creoles and natives thrown together in marginal neighborhoods, by combustion creating new cultural forms.
A similar scene repeats itself today in cities around the world. Miami, certainly. And Paris, where Eduardo Makaroff, Philippe Cohen Solal, and Christoph H. Müller -- Argentine, French and Swiss, respectively -- met and created Gotan Project. On their debut album, La Revancha del Tango (The Revenge of the Tango), Gotan Project's core members and a seven-piece group have effectively brought tango music into the digital age.
Gotan Project (Gotan is ''tango'' inverted and a slang name for it) combines acoustic instruments -- piano, violin, guitar and, of course, the sublime bandoneón (the boxy button accordion that gives tango its classic melancholy flavor) with languid, raspy vocals, beat programming, dub bass, and assorted digital tricks. It makes perfect sense, really, that the once underground music born and danced to after hours in decadent locales in Buenos Aires would be reinvented today (as it has been for previous generations of listeners) as cosmopolitan club music, and La Revancha del Tango is built on the familiar escalating rhythms and hypnotic beats of digital dance.
But Gotan goes beyond the facile sampling of world genres usually found on ''chill out'' compilations and the loopy monotony of a lot of mundane house. Lush and elegant, but with a gritty edge, the disc transmits the sensorial highs and lows that are at the core of tango.
''A lot of the time, electronic music is cold. It lacks, well, music,'' says Makaroff, talking on his cell phone as he strolls the Paris streets early on a recent evening. ''In Gotan Project's music, there's a lot of melody. What we've done is introduce emotion into electronic music.'' Seeking maximum reception for our interview, he stops on a bridge, striking what I picture as an evocative pose for a 21st-century tanguero -- a lone black-clad figure in the pale light, shouting out to the Seine.
While capturing the dramatic spirit of tango, Makaroff and company were not out to produce a nostalgia record, or one covering classic tango lyrics. On the CD, they experiment with versions of Gato Barbieri's theme for Last Tango in Paris, Astor Piazzolla's ''Vuelvo al sur,'' and unexpectedly, a comically sinister Spanish version of Frank Zappa's ''Chunga's Revenge,'' reconfigured into tango's revenge.
Here and elsewhere on the album, the members of Gotan Project were interested in referencing some 21st century parallels with the tumultuous times in which tango was born. The first track, a song apropos of recent global events, is called ''Queremos paz.'' It starts off with the voice of Che Guevara appealing for peace ''and a better life for our people.'' And at a time, recalling others, when a wave of Argentines have been emigrating around the globe (and turning up, increasingly, in Miami), Gotan Project wanted to evoke what, in one song, is described as the ''malos aires'' back home.
''The tango is full of longing and nostalgia, and there's a deliberate tanguero message in our lyrics, with references to what's been happening lately in Argentina,'' Makaroff explains. 'We wanted to make music that says more than `life is beautiful' and we also wanted to avoid the irony of electronic music or the nostalgia of original tango. We don't make political music or socially-committed music -- politics, in any case, is everywhere -- but you could say there are traces of current affairs in our music.''
Makaroff, 49, learned guitar as a child in Buenos Aires from a respected tanguero. He played rock in the 1970s, and became best known for ''El Rock del Ascensor'' (``Elevator Rock''), a hit he penned with his brother, Sergio. Eduardo later set out to explore the possibilities of tango, and maybe help to exhort some of the revenge referred to in the Gotan Project CD's title.
''I think tango is totally accessible, but largely unknown,'' says Makaroff, a condition he attributes to ''the invasion'' of Anglo music over the last century. ``Tango is one of the great musical genres of the last century. It's comparable to jazz, and when people know it, they like it. Tango deserves to reach a wider audience.''
When he moved to Paris in 1990, it was, among other reasons, because it is the city where, in the early 1900s, tango first gained respect, and because it has historically been a destination for Argentine tangueros, from Carlos Gardel to Piazzolla. It's also a place where, Makaroff says, it's possible to ''see the global panorama.'' With Cohen Solal and Müller, both DJs and producers of music for films including Lars Von Trier's Europa, Makaroff shared an interest in experimenting with possible fusions of electronic and acoustic music.
''Tango and electronic music are from two different esthetic universes -- one realist and the other abstract -- but, actually, they have a lot in common,'' says Makaroff, pointing out the tango's rhythmic roots in African candomble percussion and electronic dance music's appropriation of African-American funk and R&B beats. ''Gotan Project's music makes tango more accessible for those who do not have any knowledge of the culture, who don't have any idea what tango is, because it's funneled in via electronic music,'' he says.
Recently released in the U.S. after becoming a standard on DJs' decks in European bars and clubs, La Revancha del Tango has so far sold 500,000 copies. Pretty sweet revenge.
Gotan Project performs 8 p.m. Friday at Level (1235 Washington Avenue, Miami Beach) with live tango musicians, vocalist Cristina Vilallonga and video projection artist Prisca Lobjoy. Tickets are $22 in advance and $27 at the door. For tickets and information, call the Rhythm Foundation at 305-672-5202.
• Latin rock supergroup La Ley sends messages to their fans by traditional means: guitars and good looks. The Chilean band's new album is called Libertad (Freedom), and for those who somehow miss the point, the video of their hit single ''Amate y Salvate'' (''Love Yourself and Save Yourself'') features band members' ripping tape off of people's mouths as they sing ''The answer to that change is you.'' Miami's indefatigable glam alt-popsters Volumen Cero open for La Ley when they express themselves 8 p.m. Friday at the Jackie Gleason Theater, 1700 Washington Avenue, Miami Beach; 305-673-7300. Tickets are $35-$55.
• In an apparent victory of art over branding, Fuacata, the popular (as seen in The New York Times) Thursday night party at Hoy Como Ayer, has ceased to be after The Spam Allstars, which had served as the Fuacata band for two years, decamped to the new downtown club, I/O (30 NE 14th 305-358-8007). This time, the weekly party has no name. Back at Hoy Como Ayer, the new Thursday night features Palo, a band also playing the Cuban-funk mix that could be called Miami's new Latin sound (2212 SW Eighth St., Miami; 305-541-2631).• Miami's bilingual bard, Nil Lara, will play old crowd pleasers and new songs with his trio at I/O on Friday. Show starts around 11 p.m. Nil fans, get ready to take off your shoes.