Müller and guitarist Eduardo Makaroff (how’s that for an international collection of names?), but the player who really defines the group’s sound is probably Nini Flores.
Gotan’s official members are keyboardist/beat programmers Philippe Cohen Solal and Christoph H. Starting with the opening accordion-fueled strains of “Queremos Paz”, Gotan Project build a 10-song set of loose-limbed, jazzy melodies stitched together by rock-solid beats that seem to hover somewhere between traditional Argentinean tangos and modern breakbeats, with maybe just a splash of bebop-era jazz thrown in to keep the vibe cool, man, cool. Though nothing on La Revancha del Tango quite equals the many splendors of “Triptico”, it’s still pretty much all outstanding. Well, at least that’s how it makes my squalid little urban apartment feel. The Gotan guys blend the sexy syncopations of tango with the dark, echoing textures of dub and the beats of house and nu jazz to create a sound that is at once timeless and extremely modern, familiar and completely original, and basically just so darn all-around hip that it’ll infuse your squalid little urban apartment with all the allure of a smoke-filled Parisian jazz club. Now comes Gotan Project’s long-overdue (at least in the US it’s been available everywhere else for over a year) full-length debut, and happily, it picks up right where the monster hit “Triptico” left off. Their sound is so definitive it’s almost beyond imitation. While this doesn’t sound like a particularly radical concept, the fact is that no one had ever done it before, and Gotan executed it so flawlessly, especially on the dazzling “Triptico”, that no one else may ever be able to follow in their footsteps. When they first appeared in 2000 with the singles “El Capitalismo Foraneo” and “Triptico”, the Paris-based Gotan Project stood out from the crowded field of nu jazz producers mixing house, jazz and Latin sounds for one simple reason: Their music was based on the rhythms and instrumentation of tango. Originality is a scarce commodity in the music world these days, so the very existence of a group like Gotan Project is cause for celebrating.
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