Winner "Newcomer" BBC Awards for World Music 2005!
With his scarecrow looks, wild howls of creative fervour and almost
terrifying mastery of the accordion, few artists can match the impact
of Chango Spasiuk's recent triumphant 'arrival'. He has brought with
him a charming band and a little known music called chamamé, from the
north eastern corner of Argentina.
"It's music from the country a place where the earth is red, the
temperature is always high and there are jungles and big rivers," he
explains, eager to distinguish his rural folk style from tango, its
more familiar urban cousin. And though these days, Chango calls Buenos
Aires home, it's the sub-tropical idyll of his beloved Misiones
province that his art so vividly evokes."Music is a way to go to a
place you've never been before, or as the poet Yupanqui said: 'Music is
a torch with which to see where beauty lies'."
And what extraordinary beauty! Chango's fleet-fingered runs on
accordion are usually shadowed by the judicious flicker and wheeze of
Juan Nunez's bandoneon (tango accordion) and the exquisite
semi-classical grace of Victor Renaudeau's violin. There's also
percussion, a double bass and two acoustic guitarists, one of whom
Sebastian Villalba occasionally contributes sweet 'high 'n' lonesome'
vocals.'
Chamamé is effectively the soundtrack to a 300-year story of mixing
between the Amerindian Guaraní culture and successive waves of
settlers. Freed slaves of African descent brought swinging 6/8 rhythms,
and Jesuit priests their baroque chamber music. The accordion and its
polkas, waltzes and schottisches arrived in the late 19th century,
along with immigrants from Germany, Italy, Poland, Russia, the Basque
Country and Ukraine, where Chango's roots lie. This is powerful music,
simultaneously full of nostalgic longing and great joy. It's also
dangerously addictive, as Chango's paraphrases of Julianzini - another
Argentinian poet suggests:
"Chamamé is like a poisonous snake. It entangles itself around the feet
of he who dances. Then it bites him and its poison gets inside. And
from that moment, the man doesn't dance - he prays!"
Though, along with Raúl Barboza, Chango is chamamé's leading
contemporary exponent, he is by no means stuck in tradition; his
chamamé is richly spiced with rock, jazz and avant-garde references.
Born into a musical family in 1968, he began playing accordion at the
age of 11. Hardly a new face at home, he has released six albums in
Argentina so far, three of which have been compiled for international
release on "The Charm of Chamamé" (2003). His latest CD is the
wonderful "Tarefero de mis Pagos" (2004).
Text by Jon Lusk (fRoots)
"it's a deep, unfettered joy to indulge in Chango's masterpieces" (Songlines)
Post new comment