Gotan Project

Album Number Two

Paris 

13/04/2006 - 

Gotan Project take their name from a backwards rendering of “tango”, a slang that is in vogue on the shores of the Rio de la Plata as it is on both banks of the Seine. The hip French electro-tango outfit who rose to fame with their debut album are currently back in the news with their eagerly-awaited follow-up Lunático. On this second album – much more than a simple sequel – the group draw deeper on traditional Argentinian roots, taking their vibrant fusion sound a heel-clicking step further.

"You have to peel away the monotony tango is wrapped up in, as much on a harmonic, melodic and rhythmic level as on an aesthetic one. In short, you have to fire both musicians and their audience with enthusiasm, not bore them to death – but the music you’re playing must never stop being tango!" The legendary accordionist Astor Piazzolla managed to sum up the essence of tango in a nutshell and Gotan Project have applied his words of wisdom ever since their debut. The group came into existence in 1997 when the Argentinian guitarist Eduardo Makaroff teamed up with Philippe Cohen-Solal and Christoph H Müller, a pair of trendier music figures more in tune with what was happening on club dancefloors. Appropriately enough, the trio’s first collective effort was a cover of a Piazzolla classic, Vuelvo Al Sur. This debut burst of electro-tango marked the trio’s first steps on a musical obstacle course strewn with risks and conundrums. How were the contemporary mixing techniques of the home studio to be worked into the traditional world of tango? How to approach the classic tango repertoire without falling into simple pastiche and cliché? 

"We didn’t want to use a tango sample on a permanent loop, or simply add the sound of a bandoneon over electro backing,” Gotan Project insist. Instead, the core trio of Makaroff, Cohen-Solal and Müller assembled a group of real musicians to take up the rhythmic challenge, experimenting with various combinations until they hit upon the idea of binding their innovative mix together with dub. This finally resulted in a catchy reworking of Piazzolla’s Vuelvo Al Sur and a no-less catchy B-side El Capitalismo Foraneo. This debut maxi single – basically a fusion of house beats trafficked from a ‘milonga’ riff on Makaroff’s guitar – went on to prove a big hit with hip UK DJ Gilles Peterson and was then picked up on by the likes of Raïner Truby, Thievery Corporation and Peter Kruder. Gotan project followed this debut release with two further cutting-edge vinyls: Santa Maria and Triptico. Remix requests were soon pouring in from all sides and Gotan project their hot new brand of electro-tango given a prominent place on compilation albums worldwide. It was high time for the trio to record a debut album – and this they did in 2001 with La Revancha Del Tango, an acclaimed and commercially successful example of musical cross-over.

The same but different

Five years, several international tours and album sales totalling nearly 1 million later, Gotan Project are back in the news with Album Number Two. Faced with follow-up album syndrome – with all its accompanying dangers of repetition and their novelty value having worn thin – the group decided to delve even deeper into tango’s roots while maintaining their original watchwords: revive and renew! “when people ask me what the new album’s like," quips Philippe Cohen-Solal, “I always give the same reply: it’s the same but different!” (Taking this philosophy even further, Gotan Project have decided to push a track called Diferente as the first single release). And, on many fronts, Lunático is a very different beast to La Revancha Del Tango. Ironically, after having launched a vogue for electro-tango all the way to Buenos Aires and back, on their second album Gotan Project venture beyond what could strictly be termed the electro sphere. But they have remained true to the principles of this art in the way they have deconstructed their sound and then built it up again using sampling and musical collage techniques.

"On the first album we used covers and samples as a basis. But this time round, we composed everything around melody structures and rhythmic frameworks like the legendary tango greats Anibal Troïlo, Osvaldo Pugliese and Carlos Gardel. And from that we built up everything theme by theme," explains Christoph H Mueller, the machine whizzkid of the trio – or rather quartet, as Makaroff, Cohen-Solal and Müller have once again been joined by Gustavo Beytelmann, the pianist who guested on their debut album. And he has been much more closely involved in the elaboration of the arrangements this time round.

Aided and abetted by Pablo Agri (whose father ranks amongst the pantheon of tango stars) Beytelmann assembled a group of violinists and ‘cellists in a highly authentic setting: the Studio Ion in downtown Buenos Aires.  "I took them all back to my place,” he laughs, “to the studios where all the great figures in tango history recorded. And I took care of writing the string arrangements, trying to strike the perfect balance – not too light, not too heavy!” And the core trio were more than satisfied with the result. “Using a string orchestra has helped us develop more fully something that has always been an essential part of our aesthetic and that’s film." And it is certainly no coincidence that the only cover on this second album is a superb reworking of Paris Texas.

Real songs

Lunático not only relies upon more organic raw material, Gotan Project’s second album also takes the group’s songwriting talent to a new level. This time round, the trio align themselves with the tango tradition of “cancion”, penning real songs for their album. As if to underline this fact, one of the songs on the album is actually called Cancion and the album title is a reference to Lunático, a racehorse owned by Carlos Gardel, the Argentinian maestro of “cancion.”

Many of the songs of Lunático excel in the art of ‘tanguera’, universal dramas played out in just over three passion-packed minutes. Celos is a timeless tale of the green-eyed monster, jealousy, Amor Porteño, a poignant ballad brimming with nostalgia. Then there are two sophisticated songs performed by Cristina Vilallonga. While the lyrics are "less explicitly committed than on the first album” they nevertheless stand centre stage, performed by local Argentinian singers such as Juan Carlos Caceres and Jimi Santos representing tango’s African heritage. On a more contemporary note, the two MCs from hip-hop collective Koxmoz rap out their Mi Confesion (another allusion to Gardel who wrote his own Confesion 70 years ago). Gardel is also present in person thanks to a sample of his voice on the title track. And on an obsessive loop on La Viguela, a synthetic vocoder recites an extract from Martin Fiéro, the Argentinian Don Quixote written by Jose Hernandez. Proof, if any were needed of the sheer diversity of tango, a sound that Gotan project have amply demonstrated is much more contemporary than first meets the ear. "Tango is a vast and deep ocean,” they claim, “We’ve explored many of its depths up to now. But this time round, we’ve dared to venture even further, travelling back over an entire century of tango!” What better recommendation do you need to get your hands on a copy of Lunático? 

Gotan Project Lunático (Ya Basta/Universal) 2006

Jacques  Denis

Translation : Julie  Street