MUSIC REVIEW: Frente Cumbiero
James Cabaret, March 14
Sad to say but politics have always played a huge part in the music of South America, be it the suppression for many years of Tango by the ruling party in Argentina or Nueva Cancion in Chile as a voice against the rightist governments.
But as South America flexes its political arm by way of natural resources such as gas and oil, the West has started to listen. And while it is too early to say that we will see Cuban cigars in our supermarkets any day soon, the South American music sound can no longer be taken for granted.
In many cases it is due to the worldwide effect of the Womad festivals, and groups like Frente Cumbiero are now huge on the world music scene.
I’d like to say that FC are somewhat different in as much as they have no bass player, nor do they use the tried and true sound of timpanis and rim-shot percussion but I could not get past the overwhelming fact that here was a group that could have extended themselves more.
OK, they are passionate, they play with verve and zest, and the audience filled the mosh pit with subtle, slinky sexual moves. But as they presented tune after tune within a five-minute slot, I felt a lack of improvisation that bordered on a take of playing a track-by-track version of their recent albums.
Or as Dobie Gray once sang: “Oh give me beat boys to free my soul/I wanna get lost in your rock’n’roll and roll and drift away” and as a fan of Quantic and Ondatropica I kept waiting for that crossover sound.
Oddly enough, the most pleasurable part of the evening was the inclusion of the clarinet, which rather surprisingly gave the band a sort of Klezmer feel. When hearing sax, I could think of nothing more than a ska influence.
Still I went away happy that the NZ Festival folk keep bringing acts like this and we have venues such as the James Cabaret to accommodate them.
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