Solo Dos En Tijuana

By Jim McAdams For Some Reason The Genres Of Easy Listening I.E. “Lounge Music” And Avant-Garde Or If You Prefer “Experimental Music” Are Often Thought Of As Being Diametrically Opposed To Each Other. Hummable Tunes Rooted In Early Jazz Tradition Meant To Lull And Relax Are Not Supposed To Get Along Well With Power Electronics Noise And Dissonance. This Flies In The Face Of Evidence Provided By Artists As Venerable As Spike Jones And Enoch Light And As Contemporary As Tom Waits And Ute Lemper. Really If You Dig Into RE Search’s Incredibly Strange Music Book Series You’ll Find Innumerable Lesser Name Weirdos Who Sought To Make Mellow Ultra-Listenable Songs By Playing The Kitchen Sink. Portland Oregon Is Now The Proud Home Of A Current Such Phenomena In Solo Dos En Tijuana. I Recently Read A Rather Clueless Review Of This Group In A Local Publication That Compared Them To Traditional Marimba Music Purely Because Their Name Is In Spanish And The Singer Often Sings In That Language. A Listen To Their Excellent Album El Mango Y La Luna Caribe Finds This To Only Be About Half The Time. The Music Is Primarily Produced With Stand-Up Bass Brushed Drums And Acoustic Occasionally Electric Guitar And Some Simple Studio Effects And Trickery That Would Make The Aforementioned Enoch Light Nod In Approval. About The Only Thing El Mango And The Group Which Produced It Have In Common With Marimba Is That This Is Fun Music. A Beautiful Irreverence Characterizes The Playing And Lo-Fi Recording Without Making The Music Any Less Pleasant To Listen To. Singer Jorge Alvarez’s Voice Is Deep And Scruffy Somehow Conveying Emotion And Detachment At Once. A Really Cool Cover Of The Beatles Song “For No One” From Revolver Is Included Making A Firm Connection To The Lounge Tradition Of Covering The Fab Four. The Cover Heightens Rather Than Diminishes The Sadness Of The Original But For The Most Part The Orginals Are All About Uptempo. Perhaps The Spanish Numbers Seem A Bit More “romantic” Since Spanish Is A Romance Language. The Tom Waits Influence Is Obvious But Not Annoying On A Couple Songs Particularly The Faux Gospel “Lord.” The Same Could Probably Be Said For A Sebadoh Influence Too Particularly On “Belle Of Third.” This Isn’t Music That Will Start Revolutions Or Overthrow Governments But Once That Work Is Done You Will Want A Copy Of El Mango Y La Luna Caribe For The Party Afterwards. That Is If You Can’t Get Solo Dos En Tijuana To Play Live Instead. read less