Nothing quite prepares you for Gaby Kerpel. In his benchmark album, Carnabailito, he took the sounds, mood and, most importantly, the vibe (or onda as they would say in Argentina) of this stunning part of the country and mixed it, mashed it, messed it until it was, if not quite unrecognisable, then certainly genre defying.
Walk down Buenos Aires’s central shopping street, Avenida Florida, and you’d be forgiven for presuming that Argentine music tastes encompass just one genre: tango. So where should you be heading to catch the city’s hottest bands? Here’s a rundown offering something for all tastes.
The neighbourhood of San Telmo is the Buenos Aires that people imagine when they think of the city. Dancers really do tango on the plazas, the sound of an accordion can be heard echoing through doorways and elephantine steaks are served in the area’s restaurants.
Since the year 2000, a classical music festival has taken place on the Mendoza Wine Route during each Easter week. Ten years later, the festival has become one of the area’s most popular musical events, performed in natural settings and at churches and wineries.
Just after midnight, one drizzly Friday morning in the poor Buenos Aires neighbourhood of Abasto, I wandered through a rusty door. Inside the cavernous Club Atlético Fernandez Fierro, The Stooges’ ‘I Wanna Be Your Dog’ echoed, anti-globalist art was lit up under a roving mirror ball and students knocked back the cheap Italian liqueur fernet mixed with cola. It was clear this wasn’t the average stuffy tango hall
Everyone knows that Tango is the most famous dance of Argentina. As a proud Argentine man myself, I was always a bit embarrassed that I didn’t possess the dancing skills of so many of my fellow countrymen. So this year, I decided to tackle the dancing challenge and enrol in some proper Tango lessons. I still have a lot to learn, but here is a video showing the result of my journey into Tango so far…
If tango is the soundtrack of Buenos Aires, then it is traditional folklórico that scores the rest of Argentina. And where the countryside collides with the city is at wine-sloshing musical shindigs called peñas. Peñas in Buenos Aires attract everyone from home-sick northerners from Salta and Jujuy, to city folk who don’t want to get their feet dirty, to students looking for a bit of culture mixed with a lot of fun. Each peña has a slightly different musical angle. The term folklórico is a catch-all term for a lot of traditional music…
They say that tango is the very expression of the Argentine soul. Certainly its roots are entwined with those of modern-day Argentina as the country emerged into a nation of immigrants in the late 19th century. It was a time of tremendous change especially in the port of Buenos Aires (B.A) which was swamped with Europeans seeking a new life in the New World. Soon the influx of Italians alone outnumbered the resident porteños – citizens of B.A, who were mainly descended from Spanish colonists and African slaves…
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RT @vickybaker: Cycling in Buenos Aires is just beginning to take off. Here are some tips I wrote on the @argentowine blog http://t.co/XHwGxobM
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Gracias, ladies! RT @birdswithbottle: @winesofarg Birds with Bottle love @ArgentoWine Malbec. See vid http://t.co/dGVcwn3y
The Real Argentina is brought to you by Argento Wine – we’ve got a real passion for everything Argentina and we want to share it with you. Our contributors and editors draw on first-hand experience of the country, from the vibrant culture and the delicious food to the exhilarating countryside and bustling cities – we love it all…
