Genre: Down-Tempo/Tango Year: 2003 Country: France Official Site: Gotan Project Details: Tracks & Audio Label: Beggars Xl Recording
If Amelie had strapped on a pair of dancing shoes to go out and find her true love rather than traipsing about photo booths, she might've ended up sipping a cocktail at a club with Gotan Project playing in the background. The down-tempo, Tango beats ease rhythmic accordion solos into sexy submission and the few songs with vocals feature sultry '60s-style chanteuse crooning in Spanish, sexy enough to have the late Barry White blush at least a little.
Originally from Argentina but taking influence liberally from their current residence in Paris, the mishmosh of influences of trio Gotan Project creates an amazing world melange that, if nothing else, dusts off the accordion—actually, a bandoneon, a smaller accordion traditional to Latin America—and brings it back into the light where it belongs. Nino Flores' bandoneon wheezes and dances through the band's light dub jazz, traipsing from outright weirdness (like the cover of Frank Zappa's "Chunga's Revenge") to the gorgeously lilting opus "Triptico," which was heard widely in dance clubs back in 2000 when this CD was originally released. The CD returns Tango to the dance floor, along with strong dance beats that make the traditional genre more palatable to newer tastes.
This new domestic release is treated to four extra tracks, including a Peter Kruder mix of "Triptico," plus a video. The second CD, like most bonus remix discs, isn't worth the price of admission alone. It's a meandering affair that's nice background music but the true interest here is the original CD, which you might've missed the first time around when it was just an import. Unlike most downtempo electronica, new ground is actually covered here through the mix of the traditional and the contemporary, which is all the more amazing as the tunes were recorded three years ago.
Gotan Project La Revancha del Tango
