The Country and The City

November is a lovely month in Buenos Aires, full of sunshine, blue skies, green leaves and agreeable temperatures. On Wednesday I went to watch Scotland vs Argentina in a wee bar, only a friendly game but it was Maradonna's first game in charge and football is practically religious here! (see church of Maradonna.) Couldn't decide who to support, I am English, Argentina's natural enemy, Scotland's perhaps more natural enemy, but I lived in Glasgow for two years and now I am living in Buenos Aires! Por Favor! I went for bonnie Scotland (the underdog factor threw it - turns out it was a deserved title), they lost 1-0 and the match was dull made moreso by the porrón de Quilmes and the sunshine. The most exciting moment was a heated argument between two Argentines and a door, of which the argentine came off worse (punching a door!?)


I will remember November for A Tale of Two Cities or The Country and the City, (literary blogging.) Escaped to a little town south of the city called Tandil, tranquility, hills, lakes, dusty streets and buses with change! Oh and a very odd obsession with excercise, joggers everywhere, even the local parks were replaced by workout stations, bizarre but quite nice to sit and stuff your face with comida rica while someone stumbles past covered in sweat and panting. Yum? It was relieving to escape the rumblin' tumblin' city life but also a good contrast to return and dive into Creamfields, there aint no Creamfields in Tandil. 10 hours of music, splendiferous DJs, crowds of enthusiastic (mostly over-enthusiastic....) party goers and a very fragile Sunday spent in bed. Well worth it sooo a little review?

VS

Bajofondo Tango Club - Electronic Tango live beats, bandoleon, double bass and passionate singing oh and an appearance by the singer from Soda Stereo (que sé yo?!) they went wild...

Hernan Cattaneo (un pocito) - BA's biggest techno export, now living in Europe, sounded good but we were a little preoccupied...

Apparat - Excellente, probably my highlight, lots of interesting beats, not down the line techno, of course all technologicalied up, apple, controllers, vj, etc. Played out Way Out, an absolute tuune! Me at the front, alone for the most, dancing myself into a whirlwind, m m ch m m ch m m ch. Also ended with Let Your Love Go and morphed into some big ole fashioned bass and 140bpm style dubstep which seemed to push the soundsystem to it's limits and the BA crowd to its dancing limits. "Como bailamos?!" Heavy :)

Simian Mobile Disco - Main stage, the two UK electro geeks brough their whole station of twiddles, wires and lights to the stage, running around tweaking, nodding and lauching sounds. Crowd not really deep into it but I thought they were spot on. Hustler and It's The Beat were big but best moment was I Believe...that is a TUNE and check the remix by Joker. Yum?

Booka Shade - German veterans were not as expected. I had heard In White Rooms courtesy of Ellen Alien on her The Other Side of Berlin album (recommended!) and Charlotte remixed by Dubfire which is pure fire but their live show was amusing. yer man on the left had an electric drum kit and mic and was seemingly there to get the crowd going. "You all know this one!" "Buenos Aiiiiiiiiires lets goooooooooooo!" T'other standind in a boxed in electronic hub with buttons, mac n so on. Very strange but the crowd was got going and let go, dancing away. In White Rooms was spectacular! Managed to find Chris, a Venezuelan guy I had met in Portugal through CouchSurfing but was living in Montevideo, Uruguay and visiting BA for Creamfields, no small feat in a crowd of 100,000 people! Ended up as me, Pamela and Chris for the rest even though we had arrived as like 15 people...

Modeselektor - Only one half of the Berlin bass monsters. Saw them in Glasgow which was mental show, the two of them, bass, champagne and all those phat tunes. Phat is a very appropraite word for Modeslektor but at Creamfields there was a pretty small, quite reserved crowd and only one half, seemingly pissed, standing on the table spilling champagne and ocasionally pressing some buttons. Still, destroyed it somewhat and did a funny cameo of their new Bjork vs Anthony (Johnsons fame) tune. Got a bit much though at like 3am, 7 hours after arriving...so we left before the end for refreshments.

Gui Boratto - The end of the end of the night. At this stage lacking energy, despite the five super hi energy drinks (probably about the only person not using something "else" to keep going) Some strange sights at an electronic music night in BA, drug related no doubt...a thing where they all have some kind of cream and just rub it in their hands?! Ocassional touching of each others heads and backs, some kind of sensation thing. Que sé yo? So Gui...the man, a producer who I have loved since I started getting into electronic music. He was DJing with a Mac, abelton I presume? All very smooth but seemed very long and at times a little too cut up. Pity he was on last, would have appreciated it more in a fitter state but still his own tunes when dropped were wooo! To cap it off he had to play one song and he did. Beautiful Life, his anthem. Not a bad way to finish Creamfields, Beautiful Life, 6am, tent full of over-excited dancers after some 10 hours of dancing. Phew?



Uni is over, work is over. I am spending my days appreciating the city. A friend who just left told me I have to make the most of my time here and she was dam right. Viste che boludo! Trip to Tigres:



Museo Xul Solar (what a man!), San Telmo, Palermo...etc..etc...Off to some art galleries again soon. Made some good music progress, been producing tunes for a while here using crappy headphones and evenc rappier speakers which creak at the mere thought of SubBass. Made it a little difficult but the ideas just keep flowing and I even finished some tracks that I am, dare I say it, happy with?! Who knows...just have to master...mastering them and voila send it to the world! Here is one I call Phased and Confused (unmastered and @ 192kbps):

http://www.zshare.net/audio/51663705e582903b/