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mar 21-dic-2010 12:09
Focus on Argentina: Barem
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This month, we spin our globe to Argentina, a country that’s come to have an ever larger impact on the worldwide electronic-music scene, but about which many northern listeners know very little—perhaps understandably, given the distances involved.
Fortunately, our tour guide for the first installment of Focus on Argentina is Mauricio Barembuem, aka Barem. Since 2005, his releases and remixes on labels like Foundsound, Spectral and of course Minus have earned him the role of one of the key ambassadors of Argentina’s underground scene.
The role suits him: Barem has clearly spent plenty of time thinking about that makes Argentina’s electronic-music scene special. Read on for his in-depth perspective.
Tell us a little bit about the scene in Argentina. What are the main clubs in your city? What styles are popular? What local DJs and producers should we know about? Where do the parties take place—clubs, underground venues, chiringuitos?
Well, the scene now is pretty open. It seems like a lot of people like a bunch of different styles and it’s going back to being interesting after a few years of a strange vibe. The main big clubs in Buenos Aires are Pacha, State and Crobar. There are also cool smaller clubs like Bahrein, the Shamrock, and Cocoliche among a few others who usually do more underground nights.
The countryside has also some great spots. For example, there’s a province called Cordoba, which is in my opinion the best place in the country for electronic music, and there are also cool things happening in beach cities like Mar del Plata and Villa Gesell mostly during the summer. But I hear more and more about new cool places in other cities, so it’s really becoming progressively wider at the moment.
Stylistically, as I said, it’s pretty open right now. There used to be a big trance scene, another big progressive house scene, a small but nice drum and bass movement, and a nice, fast-growing techno/tech-house and house scene. These movements are still there, but I’ve noticed how the different crowds are starting to merge a bit instead of being totally isolated from each other like in the past five years or so.
It’s hard to talk about local DJs, because there are a lot of them. Ever since the digital revolution happened, when, for example, the so-called minimal techno group of Argentineans (including myself) started traveling the world, everything became possible for a lot of artists. In fact, some of the European purists who hate MP3’s and digital DJing often don’t realize how hard it was in countries like this to succeed before the digital format took over. I can’t really count how many artists from every style started releasing good records and going on small and bigger tours since then, but I would say at least between 25 and 30.
For now, I will name the ones that inspired me the most when I started Djing: Carlos Alfonsin, Cristobal Paz, Simbad, Dany Nijensohn, Sr Replicante, Franco Cinelli, Jorge Savoretti, Lucas Mari, and Violett. There are also some producers out there who are starting to become popular like Ronan Portela, Alexis Cabrera, Leo Grünbox, Pablo Denegri, etc, who now started to join the ones who got successful in the past years. Finally, you should check some labels like Unlock Recordings, Igloo, Caramba Recs, Miniatura Records, Groovear, Arjaus, MindTrip Music, Traut Muzik, Eat More Beef, and the mighty, brand-new Savor by Jorge Savoretti, which is my favorite at the moment... sigue aca: http://www.beatportal.com/feed/item/focus-on-argentina-barem/
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