Concert
Worldtronics: Chile
Pablo Mellado - Detalles - Original Hamster
Señor Coconut, the German-Chilean electronic success-story of 1997, was certainly no coincidence. When musician Uwe Schmidt, a.k.a. Atom Heart, first travelled to Santiago in 1995, five years had passed since the end of the military dictatorship. The children, who had grown up abroad, of exiled Chileans returned to Chile and made new contacts. Not long afterwards, the first electronic concert was held at the Santiago Planetarium, followed by raves in the Atacama desert. Under the title Plan V, one of the first albums of electronic music in Chile was recorded with ‘Habitat Individual’ in co-operation with Argentinean pop star Gustavo Cerati. During the next few years, there is a lively exchange with musicians from other international scenes in Barcelona, London, Frankfurt, Berlin and Montreal. With the success of Cristian Vogel and Ricardo Villalobos at the latest, Chile established a place for itself on the world map of electronic music. For the countless Chilean musicians across the globe, Santiago de Chile’s scene is a constant point of reference and centre of attraction. So it is all the more interesting to be able to present three musicians at WORLDTRONICS who live in this electronic centre and have been playing for about a decade now.
8 p.m.
Pablo Mellado (a.k.a. Maco)
Melancholic abstractions und hypnotic, sensual patterns appear when Pablo Mellado combines electronic sounds with those from the traditions of concrete and electro-acoustic music. In Barcelona, he worked with the Japanese musicians Aoki Takamasa, the Swiss label Spezial Material and the American synth-rock band Trans Am. Even noise becomes poetic in his performances.
9.30 p.m.
Detalles
The striking thing about Detalles minimal techno is its microscopic and meticulously composed sound details. It was more than just good fortune that the paths of Andrés Bucci, and Kate Simko crossed in Santiago. The one a painter and electronic musician, the other a Classical pianist from Chicago, who has worked with Philip Glass and Thomas Brinkmann. Together, they play warm grooves and create music of elegant lightness.
11.30 p.m.
Original Hamster
Black humour meets Electronica. First, Vicente Sanfuentes won the award ‘MTV Best Latin American Independent Band’ with the Hermanos Brothers ‘brother-brother’ duet. Then his solo album Original Hamster Presents Trendsetters and The Followers introduced cheerful electro-house music, somewhere between minimal pop and playstation nonsense. The original Hamster is looking for: ‘Musical access to black humour with the language of Kraftwerk’ and is doing so with crazy micro-funky rhythms, computer voices, deep droning bases and silly melodies. The Surtek Kollektiv, made up of Uwe Schmidt, a.k.a. Atom Heart, Sanfuentes, came up with acitón, a synthesis of reggaetón from Puerto Rico and acid from Chicago and London. No matter what Original Hamster perform in Berlin, they are sure to be highly entertaining and a great dance factor, too!
Website of Original Hamster...
