Gotan Project

Shepherds Bush Empire, London - 29 Jul 2006

by Annabel Short

Trio finds its groove in dance beats of old

"The opening songs seem stilted, but perhaps that’s what you would expect from a hybrid of Buenos Aires and Paris: ample invention and style, but with a bit too much self-awareness and control"

The crowd, squeezed into the Shepherd’s Bush Empire, are kept waiting for an hour and a half. Then the throbbing drum-beats of ‘Diferente’ break in and crescendo before the Gotan Project slink on stage in their trademark suave suits - this time all in white. As at Gotan Project’s previous gigs, there is a backdrop of film projections that blends with the tango rhythms and amplifies the Argentinean context.

The ‘Project’ is a creative musical trio consisting of the Swiss electronic producer Christoph Müller, the Parisian DJ Phillipe Cohen Solal, and Argentinean guitarist, Eduardo Makaroff. They came together at the end of the 90s to do new things with tango from the safe distance of Paris, where tango had long since made itself at home but where there was still room for experimentation without risking the wrath of traditionalists. The result, the 2001 album ‘La Revancha del Tango’, was a fusion of tango, electronica, dub and a bit of jazz, and it worked.

In their latest album, ‘Lunático’, Gotan Project have gone more traditional – recording a 15-piece tango orchestra in Buenos Aires as the base, then returning to Paris to complete the album in collaboration with other instrumentalists. At tonight’s performance, the core trio are joined by an entourage of musicians including the Barcelona singer Cristina Vilallonga, pianist Gustavo Beytelmann and Nini Flores on the ‘bandoneón’ - the Argentinean accordion whose sighing sliding sound is the lifeblood of tango.

The opening songs seem stilted, but perhaps that’s what you would expect from a hybrid of Buenos Aires and Paris: ample invention and style, but with a bit too much self-awareness and control. The band members are each immersed in their own sound and not paying much attention to each other.

Despite the tense start, the staccato tango beats in ‘Mi Confesión’ give a driving accompaniment that works brilliantly with rapped lyrics by Koxmoz. And soon after ‘Mi Confesión’ comes the starkly contrasting ‘Celos’ (jealously), a sultry jazz number in which Vilallonga’s husky voice comes into its own, against a projected backdrop of café-scenes. This marks the turning point when the group starts to seem less like a collection of soloists and more like a team. They even start exchanging smiles.

It is ‘El Norte’ – a new piece not on ‘La Revancha’ or ‘Lunático’ – that really breaks the ice. Bertelmann moves from his white sheet-wrapped piano to a drum at the centre of the stage and its galloping rhythm, Line Kruse’s frenzied violin playing and the film images of the dry north of Argentina turn up the heat and the tempo. The atmosphere becomes club-like and stays like that. In a recent interview, Christoph Müller implied that Gotan Project are mellowing with age, saying that while the first album was “DJ-friendly” and “club-oriented”, now, “We don’t go to clubs a lot anymore.” Live, it seems that Gotan Project are more comfortable back in club-mode.

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