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Home , Colombian culture, Colombian folklore, Folk music, Peruvian cumbia, Tropical music, Vallenato

Blood

Eblis Álvarez (centre) with Meridian Brothers in Bogotá, July 2017

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26 | The Wire | Meridian Brothers In 2011 Meridian Brothers were invited to perform at and the fact that this was rejected among our Al Parque in ’s capital city Bogotá. Due friends,” recalls Álvarez. Mario Galeano, who joined to its name, the festival – as well as siblings like Rock them on , adds: “We used to live very far away Al Parque and Hip Hop Al Parque – always generates from the university and we always had to take a one plenty of debate. What is jazz? What is rock? In the hour ride in the morning, and then a one hour ride in case of Meridian Brothers, a small cache of purists the afternoon… the kind of that you heard on raged against them on social media. How could their public buses was a very cheesy 90s type that was the abstract take on Colombian folk possibly be origins of vallenato romántico, so we decided to do our deemed pure enough for the jazz canon? take on that cliche sound, of this mainstream sound on The group responded by writing “El Jazz Del the radio, and do our own noisy, atonal version.” Chupasangres” (“Bloodsucker’s Jazz”). Imitating With Álvarez on electric and vocals, Morales a 1950s jazz trio, with an additional B movie horror on , María Angélica Valencia on guitar riff and a keyboard line that chatters gloriously and Galeano on bass, plus various percussionists, throughout, the goes, “Vengo, vengo, chupar Ensamble Polifónico De Vallenato (Polyphonic la sangre del pueblo” (“I come, I come, to drink the Vallenato Ensemble) played their first in 1999. blood of the people”). The word pueblo significantly After a handful of shows at the university – where means the masses or . In Colombia, the barely any of their jazz and classical snob lecturers institutions always favoured jazz and classical over supported them – the group became more and more folk and , seeing the latter as impure, interested in Colombia’s musical history. “We began untranscribable and ultimately inferior. to see an identity in it,” declares Álvarez. “At this time That hegemony and the need to overcome it is at most Colombian artists had a lack of identity or self- the heart of the music of Eblis Álvarez, the Colombian assurance. The artists were looking outside, looking who embodies Meridian Brothers, their abroad, to external movements like , live incarnation notwithstanding. With similar , jazz, the New York scene, the Berlin genre-warping projects like Los Pirañas, Chupame El scene, the London scene, but nobody was thinking Rural styles of vallenato Dedo and Frente Cumbiero, Álvarez is at the heart of that something was in Bogotá or Medellín a music scene in Bogotá which is finally addressing or . We realised that we had some sources and salsa get rebooted the notion of the country’s musical identity. In his and material that could give us an identity.” in the music of Eblis essay about Colombian music, “Between Ensamble Polifónico De Vallenato morphed into And ”, Carlos Miñana Blasco noted: Sexteto La Constelación De Colombia (Colombian Álvarez’s “Professional with formed schooling have Constellation Sextet) as the members outgrew the shown relatively little interest regarding folk and vallenato concept, with Álvarez switching to . Meridian and research.” That’s something They also introduced more traditional instruments Álvarez and his cohorts are seeking to put right. such as gaitas and caña de millo – used in Brothers traditional countryside campesino repertoires. whose sarcastic, surreal For urban like Álvarez growing up in the The two groups only ever played around a dozen seek to overturn 1990s, (a catch-all term for danceable shows and didn’t release any material – though some music popular on the country’s coast, recordings were belatedly released in 2014 – but they the hierarchies of such as cumbia, porro and salsa) was out of fashion, made a ripple that turned into a wave. Colombian music. By reserved for parties and ageing festivals. Initially, many of the members took leave in order to “At this time in Bogotá there was a lot of pursue their musical education – for instance, Álvarez Russ Slater. prejudice, a lot of classicism,” he remembers. “I headed to Copenhagen and Galeano to Rotterdam. Photography by Mateo was really ashamed of my costeño [coastal] father, “Everyone wanted to leave the country in a way,” from the Caribbean, listening to vallenato.” Though recalls Álvarez. “It was the ideology of the time, leave Gomez Garcia originally from the Caribbean coast, vallenato took the country and go to another place, there’s nothing over Colombia’s airwaves in the 90s, growing ever more to do here. This mentality of our – not any commercialised and sentimental in the process. It even more is it like that, fortunately.” became the favoured music of the narcotráficantes (drug dealers). Around this time, Meridian Brothers began as a Vallenato represented everything students back studio project allowing Álvarez to experiment with then rebelled against. Their music was rock – Guns N’ techniques and instrumentation. His early recordings Roses, , The Clash. “British used simple cassette-to-cassette dubbing of himself music was the cool one,” notes Álvarez. With little playing guitar, , , toy keyboards and access to traditional Colombian music, he and his various other instruments. Needing a name for the friends followed this path in their teens, forming bands project, he settled on Meridian Brothers, partly influenced by rock en español, British prog and punk inspired by the Meridian Hotel where he played in (especially the Medellín punk scene immortalised in a quartet, and partly by tropical the Rodrigo D: No Futuro). music combos like The Lebron Brothers and Latin But after Álvarez enrolled at the Javeriana Brothers. “I didn’t think that this project would have University to study music, focusing on classical guitar, a public image,” he reflects now. “I thought it was just tropical music and vallenato became the perfect something I would give to my friends... [The name] was platform for a new project. Javier Morales was the a thing of one second.” first to moot the idea. He had already collaborated The first official Meridian Brothers El with Álvarez in Duo Latin Lover, a brief home recording Advenimiento Del Castillo Mujer (The Advent Of The project dedicated to tropical music pastiches. When Castle Woman), arrived in 2006, while Álvarez was he saw the university was offering concert space still in studying classical and electronic for new groups he put forth the idea of a vallenato music. It featured many elements that would be ensemble. “The main appeal was the humour in it deemed characteristically Meridian Brothers on

Meridian Brothers | The Wire | 27 future releases: staccato phrasing, dry treatment Toronto and Havana, where he studied Cuban music. for his guitar sound is Los Pirañas, an improvisational of instrumentation, and Álvarez’s enquiring vocals, Their respective experiences, travels and musical trio with Ojeda on drums and Galeano on whose sarcastic, surreal lyrics were inspired by those educations fed into each other as the Colombians bass. With two that position the group’s sound written by Morales in their earlier groups. began to gain notice for their varied projects. between Konono #1, the hyperactive end of Peruvian The most distinctive stylistic trait of Meridian Meridian Brothers released Este Es El Corcel Heroico cumbia and The Nels Cline Singers, the group reveal Brothers is their use of heterogeneous sounds in Que Nos Salvará De La Hambruna Y Corrupción (This the members at their most elemental, with Galeano’s multilayered compositions that are dense in detail Is The Heroic Steed Who Will Save Us From Famine And love of 1960s and 70s cumbia, garage and psych, even as they feel fragile, like a domino circuit where Corruption) in 2009 and VII in 2011 – both of which Ojeda’s knowledge of Latin rhythms and Álvarez’s no one knows the end. All of these characteristics can built on the work of their debut, with postmodern tales highly processed sound all coming to the fore. be heard on the track “Canción De Invierno” from their of fortified by rhythmic and stylistic As for Meridian Brothers, Álvarez continued creating debut. Featuring a danceable cumbia , the track experimentations. Their first international release was his own personal musical universes on Salvadora sees Álvarez sneer “Feliz navidad” (“Merry christmas”) 2012’s Desesperanza. Robot and then Los Suicidas. While the former saw to “los banqueros, ministros, alcaldes, rateros” (“the “I got engaged with pure salsa, as almost an object, him return to the more kaleidoscopic approach of his bankers, ministers, mayors, thieves”) as clarinet like Andy Warhol with Marilyn Monroe or Marcel earlier albums, Los Suicidas was another concept, this and guitar create the carnivalesque that Duchamp, Mona Lisa with a moustache,” declares time focused on largely instrumental ambient organ gives the song its push and pull. You can never truly Álvarez. Desesperanza was inspired by the music. For Álvarez, it was his finest work, though the nail where one passage ends and another begins; of African salsa and the recording techniques of salsa critical and public response was muted. “I love that the use of overlapping rhythms and changes in time in , Colombia, which often sped up the music to album,” he insists. “For me it’s the best thing that I signature are a constant motif for Álvarez. The song’s get people dancing and sometimes increase the vocal have done. But reality is not the same as the fantasies interrupted by sour applause and cartoonish vocal pitch. Lyrically, the images of salsa gods and happy that one can create in one’s head.” whoops as it builds to a coda where Álvarez evokes a vultures, along with the act of listing his favourite mock sense of Colombian pride: “Tenemos pescado types of Colombian women, all rounded out this Meridian Brothers’ new album ¿Dónde Estás María? frito, camarones con limón, tenemos mujeres exóticas, concept. It might have deviated from salsa on some reverts to a trusted formula of eclecticism in style and música y diversión” (“We have fried fish, shrimp with tracks, but it offered a danceable sound akin to the continuity in approach. While Álvarez has shown an lemon, we have exotic women, music and fun”). No tropical music he had been researching, and some inclination for changing rhythms from song to song, doubt writing it in Denmark helped the song become even attracted the attention of global DJs. all of his albums have had a uniformity in methodology one of his most detached and unsettling portraits of and instrumentation. On ¿Dónde Estás María?, this his Colombia home. The success of Desesperanza coincided with several approach became even stricter with the creation of of Álvarez’s projects gaining international exposure. a ‘fictional ensemble’ featuring just two keyboard Álvarez collaborated with the Danish trio Sonora3 Álvarez featured on two albums with Galeano, who had sounds, fuzz guitar, bass, drums, vocals and, for the on two albums before he returned to Bogotá in been working on his Frente Cumbiero project since first time, cello. The instrument was brought in to ape 2008, where he discovered that the music scene returning to Bogotá, utilising computer technology the string sounds of 1970s Brazil and help create a had transformed. María Angélica Valencia and Javier alongside varied instrumentation to offer a modern sense of melancholia that he felt when listening to Morales had remained in the city after the dissolution take on the costeño brass bands of the 1960s and recent records he had acquired there. “[In Brazil] you of Sexteto and become involved with La Distritofónica, 70s, and the traditional campesino cumbia of Andrés hear a lot of drums, a lot of power in the percussion, a new musical collective set up by Alejandro Forero, Landero. The sound was captured on their 2010 but sometimes a very melancholic feeling,” he explains. who, along with Valencia, later became one of the live debut Frente Cumbiero Meets Mad Professor, which “We don’t really have this with Caribbean music members of Meridian Brothers. featured dub versions of the tracks by Mad Professor nowadays.” At times he sought to create a string Inspired by New York City’s Bang On A Can, Forero alongside the originals. In 2012 Galeano joined forces section by playing the cello so high to get a says he set up La Distritofónica in 2004 as “a space with British producer Will ‘Quantic’ Holland to record sound that he often got calluses on his fingers. The that would allow us to collect and share the musical an album of tropical music in the legendary of Peruvian huayno also added to the music’s work we were doing”. In many ways La Distritofónica Fuentes studio with some of the original purveyors of melancholy feeling, inspiring the vocal melodies as it – who went on to release all the early Meridian the style. The result was Ondatrópica, which captured had done in of the 1970s and 80s. Brothers albums – carried on the work of Ensamble both the sound of the Caribbean coast and Afro- The key to all Álvarez’s projects has been in creating and Sexteto. Forero certainly sees this in the way Colombian styles from the Pacific coast, along with a fantasy of Colombian , taking tropical music those groups addressed “the fusion of traditional touches of dub, hiphop and ska. out of the margins and recasting it in the centre, and popular music” with an attitude “far from being It’s easy to forget when listening to the dense while reaching out to underground scenes in major purists or searching for a ‘correct’ academic way constructions of Meridian Brothers that Álvarez’s cities across Europe and the Americas for inspiration, to mix these styles with new musical languages”. foremost instrument is guitar. It’s a tool he fell out fortification and exposure. Lyrically and in its use of La Distritofónica has since evolved into a record of love with for a number of years, citing “a lack of the cumbia rhythm, ¿Dónde Estás María? takes root in label and festival, whose line-up has included Marc inspiration (and heroes)”, but rediscovered it in Colombia, but the technical and structural innovations Ribot, John Medeski and Metá-Metá. The label has Denmark when he began using patches and programs of Meridian Brothers, as well as their broad influences, released work by Curupira, another important group to alter the sound of the instrument, treating it more have helped tropical music reach a wider audience. of musicians researching Colombian music, alongside like a prepared . Upon returning to Colombia he The global attention has proved vital in changing what releases fusing with traditional rhythms and combined his classical background and knowledge Álvarez calls Colombia’s “self-confidence problem”. instrumentation. of tropical music with the techniques and software Through all of the projects above, as well as others “Everyone was set up,” says Álvarez of his return he’d been using to create the effects-heavy sound like Romperayo (Ojeda’s studio project with Álvarez home. “There was a scene, there were , (Álvarez claims there to be around 30 software and sometimes playing keyboards in its live incarnation) there was lot of stuff happening”. Back in Bogotá he hardware effects used on his guitar) heard on the and Chupame El Dedo (a ‘tropical metal’ duo created was joined by Galeano. The latter had returned from Frente Cumbiero and Ondatrópica albums. His guitar by Álvarez and Ojeda for a commission in Berlin), Holland invigorated by developments in electronic style is often described as psychedelic, but he sees Álvarez and company have become the link between cumbia. Dick El Demasiado’s Festicumex festivals in this comparison as little more than a coincidence. For contemporary and that Colombia needed, Honduras, Argentina and Eindhoven, the last of which him, his approach is abstract, technical, inspired by and broken the Bogotá music scene’s focus on rock Galeano had performed at, provided the launchpad “old , classical guitar ‘riffs’, renaissance and and the institutional predilection for jazz and classical. for the cumbia digital movement that began in and Peruvian chicha”, though he does Thanks to Meridian Brothers and associates, tropical Buenos Aires in the early 2000s. Another returnee admit that his research into signal processing and music is not just for Christmas.  Meridian Brothers’ was Pedro Ojeda, who had left Bogotá before the fondness for may be the reasons for this ¿Dónde Estás María? is released by Soundway. The formations of Ensamble and Sexteto, spending time in psychedelic categorisation. The most animated home group tour Europe in September: see Out There

28 | The Wire | Meridian Brothers Meridian Brothers | The Wire | 29