notas desde el down under:

Hace mucho prometí reseñar varios de nuestros dias en Melbourne, Australia. Pero no me he dado el tiempo de organizar las notas que apuntaba todos las noches desde el último piso de un hotel de cadena viendo a la espectacular Melbourne.

Me encontré con un texto de un músico-escritor que fue una mañana en que dimos una conferencia de prensa en el Spiegeltent, previo a nuestro par de conciertos y a mi cena de canguro, me pareció interesante lo que escribe. Aquí se los dejo, mientras encuentro y organizo mis notas personales de aquellas noches australianas:

Dancing to Nortec
I went to dance and like the rest of the audience at the Nortec Collective I couldn’t resist their pounding beats and piercing brass lines. A rave at the Meat Market, part of the Melbourne International Arts Festival; festival ticket holders in their 50s and 60s dancing with young ravers with dreadlocks. On stage 6 guys from Tijuana, Mexico with laptops with two big screens of full on graphics manipulated by VJ Cro on either side of them.
A few days earlier I sat in the Spiegeltent for an “in conversation” part of the arts festival as 4 members the Nortec Collective caged beers from the festival director: “it is a cultural thing for us.” I asked about the “collective” part of their name, how the structure of Nortec works and they laughed. They all work separately in separate studios and come together to put on show and produce albums; I understood because it was the way that Clan Analogue worked when I was part of it. Nortec works because they have an over-arching philosophy/attitude/culture that is Nortec.
In my notes for this blog I was gathering together bits about trans-cultural artists in the post-colonial world. Painters like Juan Davilla, Maria Bani and Nusra Latif Qureshi whose work spans cultures but now I find myself writing about the Nortec Collective and the convergence of cultures, of high-tech, techno and low-tech, norteño music. Traditions handed down over the generations are adaptable; traditional cultures are not unchanging but have adapted and survived changes. The stronger the tradition the better able it is to survive changes and the strength of the tradition is in the extent to which it permeates and adapts to changes. I really like Bhangra, traditional Punjabi harvest festival music mixed with high-tech beats, by Talvin Singh or Westworld for the same reasons I enjoy Nortec; it is good trans-cultural music.
Looking at my notes from the talk at the Spiegeltent one of the members made a remark about “art as a response to social pressure.” And they all talked about the social pressures in Tijuana, the place that Krusty, the clown calls “the most fun place on earth.” Tijuana has many social pressure, not just the north south divide of the US border, but pressures from tourism, population and economic growth. And people respond to these social pressures by making music and dancing.
Anyway I went to dance, there is plenty written about Nortec and their vision in the Festival program and a book with DVD. There was the variety of sounds and styles from the different members; I’m still trying to get my head around it but my body was right there. It was live techno music and there were a few rare crunches in the sound that reminded me that the sound was being manipulated live. I had a great night.