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bolero & vals peruano

Bloque Depresivo

Con su banda Chico Trujillo, Aldo “Macha” Asenjo experimenta la felicidad de la cumbia, pero hace un par de años se sacudió la alegría y creó Bloque Depresivo, una banda que rescata baladas tristes y valses en los que la pena es el tópico común.

Era una idea que tenía desde hace mucho, siempre me gustaron este tipo de canciones que uno se encuentra a las cuatro de la mañana en el bar que cierra al último. Siempre me gustó cantar ese sentimiento extremo y tuve por mucho tiempo la curiosidad de aprender sobre estas canciones e intentar alguna vez cantarlas con alguna banda”, cuenta Macha sobre el nacimiento de Bloque Depresivo.

Luego de algunas juntadas caseras el proyecto creció y se convirtió en una banda satélite del cantante de Chico Trujillo. “Siempre imaginé que lo iba a hacer cuando fuese mucho más viejo, pero me di cuenta de que tal vez en la vejez no iba a tener energía. Pero empezamos a juntarnos con algunos de la banda y apareció el cariño por este estilo”, explica.

Mas allá de los bares de almas desoladas, las canciones de penas fueron parte de la banda sonora con la que creció el cantautor. “Son canciones que se oían en casa y en el barrio, las fui incorporando inconscientemente”.

Bloque Depresivo es casi la contracara de Chico Trujillo, ¿será que Macha se cansó de la felicidad de la cumbia? “No, yo no soy una persona feliz por el hecho de hacer cumbia (ríe); de hecho, tengo tres bandas, tengo como una esquizofrenia permanente”, dice riendo.

Una característica de este nuevo proyecto es la recepción universal (más allá de países y continentes) que ha tenido. Al fin y al cabo, como dice el refrán popular, de los cuernos y de la muerte nadie se salva.

KUMBIA BORUKA

Kumbia Boruka

Exciting cumbia from Mexico and beyond

The roots of Kumbia Boruka are to be found in Monterrey, the cumbia capital of Mexico and the place where Hernan Cortés, the accordion player and band leader, grew up in the eighties. He didn’t only learn to play the accordion from the living legend of Mexican cumbia, Celso Piña, but he was also the percussionist in the band of Celso Piña during long international tours.

Besides their own contemporary and festive compositions, the band knows how to bring new flavours to classic cumbias from the sixties, mixing it with influences from reggae, dub, African music and rock, psychedelic electric guitar melodies, an extensive rhythm section and powerful and exciting brass arrangements. The Peruvian cumbia, called chicha, is not forgotten either. The result is a hybrid cumbia, nueva cumbia, with fierce Latin energy that will blow your mind! It’s party time!

With three albums and more than 400 shows, Kumbia Boruka has fulfilled his challenge by making the Old Continent vibrate at the emblematic rhythm of Latin America, the Cumbia.

In addition, the band’s music appears with 5 songs in the soundtrack of the excellent documentary series Maradona in Mexico launched on Netflix last year.

The “Remedio” that Kumbia Boruka offers is an authentic and compelling cure against the evils of our time. To be enjoyed without moderation !

Line up

Hernán Cortés – Lead Voice & accordion
Christian Briseño – Lead Voice
Tadeo Cortés – Congas & guacharaca
Jonathan Cortez Castillo – Bass
Miguel Mino – Guitar
Cyril Gelly – Drums
Clément Buisson – Trumpet
Tristan Darphin – Trombone

Ana Tijoux, Chilean Hip Hop Queen

Ana Tijoux

Ana Tijoux is the Chilean hip-hop protester. Her cover letter could well be what media outlets like The Rolling Stones who chose her as the best rapper in Spanish, The New York Times who points to her as the Latin American response to Lauryn Hill, or magazines like Newsweek who ranks her as the most important Latin American rapper on the international scene.

Ana Tijoux was born in Lille in 1977. Her parents went into exile during Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship in Chile, which has left a mark on her career, marked by a special sensitivity to political and social issues. Her music dialogues to the sound of hip hop, fused. A feminist and activist in her lyrics, she denounces social and cultural deficiencies.

In favor of women’s rights and against gender violence, in 2014 she highlighted in her album “Vengo” the song “Antipatriarch”. She frequently participate in campaigns against inequality and oppression in the world. Tijoux is committed to defending women’s rights and has denounced gender violence and inequality. Also the inequality faced by artists in the world of cinema, or singers.

Ana is a global artist. About to publish her first book of poetry and her fifth studio album, she dares to go through all the creative processes: she composes, writes and arranges both her own themes and those she develops for different audiovisual projects, from films to documentaries. She has also put herself in front of the camera in films such as La Isla de los Pingüinos or a Chilean series of upcoming premieres and feminist theme called La Jauría.

She has dozens of nominations for various awards such as the MTV, 40 Principales, Indie Music Awards and has eight Grammy nominations (both Latin and Anglo), making her the Chilean woman with the most nominations for these awards.

Chico Trujillo

South America’s hottest Cumbia Orchestra

Chico Trujillo is Chile’s most prominent Cumbia band. They are the soundtrack to every party from Santiago to Valparaiso. They can fill stadiums. Their mixture of classic cumbia and hints of rock and ska has assured them audiences from every generation and every walk of life.

Chico Trujillo started as an offshoot of punk/Ska band LaFloripondio in 1999. Thirteen years and five albums later, the offshoot has come to symbolize a uniquely Chilean cocktail. One that is rooted in the cumbias of the pre-Pinochet days and manages to incorporate every aspect of Chile’s popular culture. They have meshed bits and pieces of Chile’s fragemented past with the global influence of alternative culture and merged it all under the pan-latin banner of Cumbia.

It’s the first time since ska erupted out of Jamaican onto the world’s dance floors (three times over) that a a popular musical movement not born in the United States is going global. This time, though, it’s a hispanophone movement, making huge headways in Latin America, Europe and Japan.

“Lollapalooza Chile has introduced me to a world-class party band: Chico Trujillo […] Every party band needs a rhythm, and Aldo Asenjo, the band’s leader and singer, relies on cumbia, the beat heard in countless variations across Latin America.” New-York Times