Independent Perspective News

The Mexican counterrevolution

Music: 4 caminos, by Cafe Tacuba.

The record will be released on the 31th. It shows the excellent band in a process of simplification of their music. With elements from the 80s, no crossbreeding of rhythms nor sound experimentation.

After the melancholic anthology Tiempo transcurrido, after the pretentious and genial boom of Revés/Yo soy, a few months after Valle Calampa -the tribute to the band Los Tres- and nine years after Re, the cathedral of Latin rock, Café Tacuba, keeps playing unpredictability. Cuatro caminos, the album to be released on the 31th this month, is precisely turning out of the way they seemed to be speeding to. In the perspective of any mainstream Latin American band, it would be a great, provoking record; analyzed within the Tacuba parameters -a dimension it itself, a unique and profound cosmogony- it's almost a conservative record.

The change is paradoxically revolutionary and it's not related to the promoted news of the replacement of the drum machine by orthodox drums as a symbol of classicism. At least, it's not related to that only. Although the summoning of Víctor Indrizio and Joey Waronker gives it an evident passionate and rocker pulse, there is in intention to retrace the steps behind, to simplify in search of a freshness, that of the guy who after having read entire book shelves concludes nothing is as important as looking for the Zen sense of life. Tacuba leaves Re as an insuperable peak and Reves/Yo soy as a cornice. One step forward would be the abyss, their disintegration as a band of pop music.

4 caminos lacks two of their most praised features: rhythm crossbreeding and sound experimentation. (...) The lyrics in Mediodía help define this phase of Café Tacuba: it tells the Saturday afternoon of a lonely man in his balcony: "Look at the kids they play with any-color balloons/Look at the people, they buy any-flavor icecreams./(...)/How happy they are!".

(...)

In 1999 they began to say good-bye to their multinational record label with a complex and impossible to sell double album. Now, they allow themselves to join Dave Fridmann (Mercury Rev and The Flaming Lips) and Andrew Weiss (Rollins Band, Babasónicos), as producers, to their previous producers Gustavo Santaolalla and Aníbal Kerpel for their most stripped and elemental album of their 14-life. 4 caminos seems to be a different perspective, a regression, the awareness of limits or a whim. And it will neither let down nor surprise anybody.

For reading the complete article (in spanish), click here.

A simple life

According to Café Tacuba, the best way of leaving the introspection of Revés/ Yo soy behind was choosing the friendly freshness of Cuatro caminos , their new album: the beginning of a new era for Latin rock.

"After you turn 30, nothing's the same" says as in a confession Quique Rangel, bass player of Café Tacuba.

(...)

-When did you actually process the idea of this being such a straightforward record?

It was after the break we took in 2001, when each of us devoted to their personal projects so as to keep a distance from the group. We starting rehearsing the new songs with this idea of immediacy and simplification regarding form. We had reach a level of complexity and sophistication with Revés/Yo: we had become very sober and dark. From then on, we turned toward simplicity and spontaneity, something more played, with less samplers and electronics.

(...)

-However, the lyrical spirit of Cuatro Caminos doesn't show any contrasts.

The coincidence has to do with the fact that we've just turned 14 as a band (...) Now the aggressiveness of the lyrics of the first records don't exist any more; at least it's not so manifest. On the other hand, there's a certain lack of optimism that relates to the sign of the times: after turning 30 you don't see things the same way. (...) What we're do know for sure is the concept of the band: we've always been outsiders.

(...)

"In the beginning, our search was that of a national, Latin identity; with that as a basis, we gradually began to allow ourselves to open up to a universal experience that was neither excluding nor follower of mainstream thought. The only real thing is that borders don't exists: we're all from here, from the world.

Published within June 2003.