South American music and culture magazine

Because we live in such a digital age, most things are divided between that which is technological and new, or that which is organic and conventional. And music is no exception – in it’s most basic forms, it is either completely electronic or completely traditional. Yet over the past twenty years or so, artists have begun to mix these two genres, and a hybridized style has emerged, notably through acts like Portishead and Thievery Corporation. Since then, musicians have experimented with this combination of sounds to the extreme, simultaneously exploring older classic sounds along with new, avant-garde ones. And in today’s music scene, the Argentine-based ZZK Records is perhaps the most exemplary representation of this hybridity through their experimentation with the sounds of digital cumbia. Continue Reading

Every once in a while, a film appears which seems to come out of nowhere, but which touches everyone who sees it. The way it happens is that usually the film festival circuit see it first: programmers, critics and those few lucky discerning members of the public who might rave about it to their friends without ever knowing if the film will see the light of day again. Las Acacias is one of these films. Continue Reading

“There are no statistics of the soul. There is no way to measure the depth of the cultural wound… we cannot know to what point we have been mutilated in our consciousness, our identity and our memory.”

— Eduardo Galeano

Like many of her contemporaries, Silvia Malagrino left Argentina in 1978 to escape the repressive military dictatorship. Three decades later, she filmed her return, reflecting her desire to know and remember her abandoned country, to find a way to be present and absent from the histories that haunt her. Continue Reading

This is an edited extract from the second edition of the Bradt guide, Argentina by Erin McCloskey (2011). Continue Reading

The cost of living in Argentina has risen considerably over the last few years. Since the economic and political chaos which followed the country’s sovereign default in 2002, economic growth has returned to Argentina with the economy growing by over 40% since 2007. Continue Reading

It’s election season in Argentina, which means bread and circus for porteños in spades, since the lion’s share of voters live in the city and province of Buenos Aires. Entertaining the masses and convincing them to vote for you is a bit trickier, however, when the mayor of the capital, Mauricio Macri, and the president of the nation, Cristina Kirchner, do not have the habit of making lunch dates. Continue Reading

This year has seen new releases from Soema Montenegro, Violeta Castillo, Julieta Sabanes and Luciana Taglipietra. It’s almost as if the death of Mercedes Sosa has left a huge space that the female singers of Argentina must try and fill. Continue Reading

Writing about somewhere you have never been is always more difficult than somewhere that you are familiar with. Your perception of that place is shaped by things heard and read. The name of a place in itself can conjure certain images. And the Tigre Delta is no exception. Continue Reading

Last month marked the seventy-sixth year since Argentine music maestro, Carlos Gardel’s, untimely death. To this day however, his name and suave, iconic image remain as popular as ever. The propensity of Gardel’s fame as a national treasure can be seen in the hundreds of images presented on shop fronts, buildings and walls. His reputation as the “king of tango” can even be spotted as far as Scotland where numerous statues have been recently erected in honour of his extensive tour of the country’s rural areas. Continue Reading

Vincent Moon travelled to Buenos Aires in December 2010 in order to showcase work he’d done a year before on his Temporary Buenos Aires special. This time he also had the idea of filming Maricel Ysasa, a new Argentine singer yet to release her debut album. Continue Reading

Some characters present a special difficulty when it comes to portray them: their legacy, their power in the field they master, the respect they command in their colleagues and audience, force the writer to raise the game in order to avoid disastrous comparisons when you are talking about them. Continue Reading

Like every other big city in the world, there is a musicality that oozes from the streets of Buenos Aires. The incessant humming of old, rusty buses trying to make their way through cobbled roads, explosive symphonies of taxi horns alerting pedestrians not to cross a corner, choirs with half-covered faces singing political slogans in the middle of an avenue.
Continue Reading