South American music and culture magazine

There is something that comes through whenever “folkclor progresivo” artist Pernett releases a track and it’s all too appropriate as we near the start of Barranquilla’s Carnival on February 18th. That something is Colombia’s Caribbean coast. Continue Reading

I arrived at Discos Fuentes studio in Medellin late on Friday afternoon. It was supposed to be a day for Ondatrópica – the new project from Will “Quantic” Holland and Mario Galeano Toro – to pack up their equipment, yet they were still busy finishing vocals on the final track, an original composition from Fruko, one of Colombia’s true musical heroes and no stranger to Discos Fuentes studio. Continue Reading

Conector is the new project from Hector Buitrago, otherwise known as half of Aterciopelados, one of Colombia’s most intentive and popular alternative acts. His new project sees him head in more abstract directions with less of a focus on structure. The result is hypnotic, lush and perfectly capturing the relationship between music and nature that is so relevant in Colombia.

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For more from Conector:
soundcloud.com/conector-1
facebook.com/conectormusica

At the end of last year we held a small private screening of Esperando el Tsunami, a new film from Vincent Moon and Lulacruza logging a musical journey across Colombia. Now, with our good friends Movimientos, we will be holding an official screening of the film at Rich Mix in London (followed by live music). Prepare yourself for a truly original journey into Latin America! Continue Reading

Barranquilla Carnival is one of the most colourful and intense carnivals in South America and second in size only to Brazil’s. As artist Diego Samper Martinez puts it, the Carnival of Barranquilla is “the ultimate people’s celebration — the merriest, the loosest, true to the free-wheeling Caribbean spirit.” Continue Reading

It doesn’t require a visit to Wikipedia or the Education Update to know that Pablo Escobar was one of the world’s most notorious criminals. In addition to instigating thousands of murders, including those of judges, policemen, and even a presidential candidate, Escobar successfully detonated an airliner carrying civilian passengers and blew up the government’s security ministry. Now, the man who was once the most feared organised crime leader of the 21st century, has become something else – which is possibly even more shocking – a tourist attraction. Continue Reading

Interesting new side project here from Bomba Estéreo’s Liliana Saumet. Under the moniker of Leidi Li, she has teamed up with Argentina’s AOIM (known to his bank manager as Pedro D’Alessandro), for a track called Maté A Mi Novio (“I Killed My Boyfriend”), which considering Liliana’s boyfriend is Pedro, makes you wonder how he thought about this recording session would end. The song is considerably more down-tempo than Bomba Estéreo, and sounds pretty damn good to our ears.

Kudos to Remezcla for the heads up on this one.

A special New Year’s treat here in the shape of two new mixes from La Tabaquera – aka the latest project from Rodrigo Caçapa and Alessandra Leão – both celebrating classic Colombian music. We originally featured La Tabaquera’s Peru mixtape a few months ago, and these Colombian mixtapes offer much of the same, i.e. great music from Colombia’s past featuring plenty of cumbia, porro, descarga, salsa, champeta and much more. Continue Reading

Los Pirañas is a side project of members of Frente Cumbiero and Meridian Brothers, two of Colombia’s most interesting bands. From the first beat of the opening track it’s quite clear that Los Pirañas is a vehicle for them to try out some of their most far-out ideas. There’s thumping drums, a bassline that’s quite simply a relentless New York No Wave onslaught and guitars that sound alternately like elastic and metal, together making a sound that you might want to call “tropical noise”. Continue Reading

Esperando el Tsunami is the new film from French film-maker Vincent Moon and Argentine/Colombian folk duo Lulacruza. The film documents their journey through Colombia meeting many of the country’s finest musicians while also discovering this country in all of it’s glory, revelling in the nature and the people that they meet along the way. On December 8th Sounds and Colours will be hosting a special screening of the film, and want to know whether you fancy coming along. Continue Reading

We’re big fans of Vincent Moon here on Sounds and Colours. His Petites Planetes and Take Away Shows videos have featured some of our favourite musicians, people like Soema Montenegro, Ney Matogrosso, Fernando Milagros and Tom Zé, all filmed using Vincent’s distinctive style. Recently he has released Esperando el Tsunami, an astonishing journey through Colombia featuring Lulacruza and many of Colombia’s finest musicians. We’ve really fallen in love with the film and so decided the time was right to ask Vincent a few questions about his style of film-making and all of these projects that we love so much. Continue Reading

Today is the World Premiere of Esperando el Tsunami, a new documentary from Vincent Moon and Lulacruza. It’s a film that has been funded by the people and that it is now being screened to the people, as cheaply and easily as possible. Continue Reading