By José Gandue @Gandour
There is a question that is constantly asked in the Colombian music scene: What comes after the boom of Caribbean electro fusion that has triumphed all over the world? What comes after Bomba Estéreo, Systema Solar, and other acts that flood the most cutting-edge dance floors, and the uneven imitations that try to follow in their footsteps but fail? Listeners now crave something different, a new flavor, perhaps not so heavily laced with new machines and corporate experimentation. Perhaps something that evokes the feeling of the city, something grittier, perhaps a bit further from the coast. and that it rather has more of a smell of a seedy neighborhood dive, More guitar-driven sounds, more Noel Petro, more street fairs, more social activism. Well, maybe it's time to listen to... Milmarías and his new album Araucaima.
What brothers Kike and Erick Bejarano have accomplished, along with the brilliant drummer and percussionist Gregorio Merchán, is remarkable. They have always had the desire to compose songs that They appear to be made along the side of the holiday highway, These are songs that aspire to be hits at village festivals, but without losing their experimental spirit, their desire to blend what others consider irreconcilable, achieving astonishing mixtures. But what has been achieved in Araucaima It's about achieving, seemingly, the desired point. They have magically managed to combine disco sounds, creating their own unique style. They draw from champeta, dembow, and even reggaeton, and blend them together., with a punk spirit (even if radicals are offended by this statement) with traditional tropical moments. They have made extensive use of samplers and other technological elements to distort the obvious and give a new, more authentic color to their sonic textures. It's barroom psychedelia, Closer to the everyday, further from the vague pretensions of the same old pretentious buffoons.
Araucaima It features clever, daring songs that nevertheless manage to be incredibly fun. This album can be listened to without any preconceptions and is made for dancing in any situation, but upon repeated listens, the audience will discover unexpected details. It's an album made to last, although some will happily insist on playing it repeatedly during the upcoming Christmas holidays.