It’s tango, but not as we know it from Antwerp’s happy outsiders
Argentine musician Enrique Noviello leads an Antwerp septet happy to be defying musical purists with their blend of tango and hip-hop – without a digital download in sight
Tango 2.0
It happened at a point in his life, he says, when he wanted to make a career switch. “I’d had it with being a session player, always moving from one band to the other and touring endlessly. Not only did I have kids, I also wanted to tell my own story.”
It’s been a bumpy ride for Noviello, who was born in Argentina in 1974 but now lives in Antwerp. He left his homeland in 2001. “I decided to go to Amsterdam, where a friend was living, and from there explore Europe. I burnt all my bridges and sold everything I had. Sadly, the heavy economic crisis of that time in Argentina devalued my money. I should have had enough to live on for a year, but it was reduced to €500 and a plane ticket.”
After his visa expired, he lived below the authorities’ radar, first in the Netherlands and then in Flanders. “In Amsterdam I met Ambrassband, a punk brass band from Antwerp. Eventually I moved into their squat, and I’ve been in Antwerp for the past 15 years.” In 2007, he became a Belgian citizen.
Distance lends certainty
Switching to the bandoneon also meant embracing the tango, the music of his home country. As it happened, he had to travel more than 11,000 kilometres to discover its power and beauty.
“Distance always helps,” he says. “It helped me to question certainties I had about myself and my country. And tango is music you can only understand after certain things have happened in your life: loving and losing, dreaming and failing, accepting you’ll never be able to realise those dreams. In one word: You need maturity to understand tango.”
Noviello leads El Juntacadaveres, a septet named after a novel by 20th-century Uruguayan author Juan Carlos Onetti. “One day, I bought the only Spanish-language novel in a second-hand bookshop in Antwerp, Juntacadáveres (Body Snatcher) by Onetti,” he recalls. “The book had such an effect on me that I started composing music. I think you can find a lot of Onetti in both the general mood and the lyrics of our music.”
Tango people don’t consider what we do to be tango, the rock people don’t consider it rock, the mainstream doesn’t see us as mainstream
According to Jean-Paul Sartre, Noviello explains, Onetti was the real inventor of existentialism, but, without ever breaking through to a wide audience, he remained a writer’s writer. “The poetry of his writing is unique: both simple and profound.”
Discovering Onetti coincided with Noviello buying his first bandoneon: “I had the feeling that every piece of the puzzle had fallen together. When I started composing the music for El Juntacadaveres, I was all alone with a computer and the bandoneon. I was strongly influenced by the [Paris-based] Gotan Project, who had a very interesting approach to tango music.”
Then he started building the band. At first they were still what he calls a classical tango orchestra, with flute, double bass, violin, two bandoneons and acoustic piano. Then they incorporated drums and electric guitars.
Musical rebellion
“The latest addition was the rapping, and that has been our formation for the last five years.” They are happy outsiders in today’s music world, he says. “The tango people don’t consider what we do to be tango, the rock people don’t consider it rock, the mainstream doesn’t see us as mainstream.”
Following up their debut album, De Platino, in 2013, they have now released Who’s Gonna Stop Us, the first volume of a trilogy. “It’s a tribute to our main influences. Who’s Gonna Stop Us, a yellow vinyl, refers to the Bronx in the 1970s, the place and time where hip-hop was born. It was a rebellion against the mainstream music of the time.”
The second EP will be red. “It’s a flashback to Buenos Aires, again in the 1970s, when Astor Piazzolla founded his octeto, which was the first time a tango ensemble had used electric guitar, drums and Hammond organ.”
The same period will be centre stage on the third release: a black vinyl dedicated to the Antwerp music scene. “I’ll be looking for the kleinkunst form of singing that reigned here. When you put the three EPs together, you get not only the Belgian flag, but also the complete identity of our music.”
If I die tomorrow, I’ll leave something nice behind. Something more than a file stored at a digital centre in the middle of nowhere
The EPs will be released on vinyl and cassette. “It’s a way of not doing what the mainstream tells us to do,” says Noviello. “A cassette clearly sounds better than a digital file because you have a physical action. Secondly, it’s a nice object, one that’s linked to mobility and progress. Back in the day, having a Walkman was the shit.”
The music industry has radically changed, he points out, with the model of communication between artist and receiver corrupted. “After an intense creative process – from writing the songs to designing the artwork – you realise that your CD has no value. No commercial, spiritual or artistic value, because you just become an element in a playlist on iTunes, Spotify or another digital platform. The music is sold for a few cents per track, and the number of new releases each day is infinite.”
It’s a game he can’t win: “I will never have the means to be competitive in that market.”
Noviello is very radical in his choices, and, unlike with most vinyl releases, you won’t get a download code. “If I die tomorrow, I’ll leave something nice behind. Something more than a file stored at a digital centre in the middle of nowhere. That’s why I’ll do it my way. I have the feeling I don’t have to please anyone or anything except my own creative hunger.”
El Juntacadaveres play Brussels in January and Zemst in March. The new album can be found at vinyl shops, including Tune Up in Antwerp, Doctor Vinyl in Brussels and Music Mania in Ghent
More new music this month
Daan
Nada • [PIAS]
“I broke the wrong heart: It should have been mine”, Daan confesses on his new album. This soul-baring collection of songs about loss and pain convinces most strongly when the Flemish musician keeps it simple, musically. Those moments recall the later work of Johnny Cash. In other songs, electronic elements are inventively integrated so they don’t clash with the more intimate moments. With the exception of the Spanish electro-pop that concludes the album, that is. It’s the only track that’s really nada. ★★☆☆
Zimmerman
The Afterglow • Zimmerman
One of Flanders’ most successful rock bands of the decade, Balthazar, decided to take a break to give members the chance to pursue solo projects. A few months after Maarten Devoldere’s debut as Warhaus comes Zimmerman, the alter ego of bass player Simon Cassier. On The Afterglow, he deals in compact rock songs with drawling vocals. It’s a bit surprising he took Bob Dylan’s birth name as his moniker, but as the Nobel laureate once said himself: “You call yourself what you want to call yourself.” ★★☆☆
