The Prague Post
November 21st, 2008
Endowment Fund     Business Listings ONLINE      Reservations      Classifieds    Subscriptions
Hotel Prague Centre

Home » Archives » Night & Day

Brits, Balkan beats and Latino rock

Colours of Ostrava offers an international mix of alternative music
Stage Review | Search restaurants | Archives

By James Scanlon
For The Prague Post
July 11th, 2007 issue

COURTESY PHOTO
Academy Award winner Gustavo Santaolalla, seated third from left, brings his danceable Bajofondo Tango Club.
Colours of Ostrava

When: July 12–15
Where: Ostrava
Tickets: 800 Kč from Ticketpro,
890 Kč at the venue, for entire festival; 300–390 Kč for single-day tickets

Maintaining its diversity with an ever-increasing global focus, the sixth annual Colours of Ostrava festival has more edge to it than a badly opened can of baked beans.
Marianne Faithfull is the surprise headliner this year, with the likes of the United Kingdom’s Cold Cut, Gipsy Kings and Prague’s own Gipsy.cz following in hot pursuit. Having recently won a battle against cancer, Faithfull is making a sensational return to the live circuit. No doubt revelers will be totally entranced by her witchy husk of a voice and the haunting anguish of her soul as she performs songs such as “A Lean and Hungry Look.”
Colours is not so much about big names, though. It’s more about discovering some of the more unusual and interesting alternative acts.
A definite must-see is Argentinian musician, film composer and producer Gustavo Santaolalla and his Bajofondo Tango Club. For years, Santaolalla has transformed the traditional music of Argentinian tango with provocative injections of modern-day elements of house, trip-hop and drum’n’bass. Through his own label, Surco, and many other projects he has produced more than 100 albums from artists including Molotov, Juanes, Orishas, Bersuit and La Vele Puerca. In the process, he’s helped transform the whole landscape of Latino rock.
Santaolalla started the Bajofondo Tango Club four years ago with longtime collaborator Juan Campodomio from Uruguay. Initially, it was meant to be a one-off recording project. But stumbling upon a winning formula with various other musicians from Argentina and Uruguay, they put together a solid eight-piece touring band.
“The music is a contemporary interpretation of what we think is the sound of Buenos Aires and Montevodeo,” says Santaolalla via phone from Los Angeles, his home since 1978. Of equal importance to Santaolalla is his film work. A couple years ago he won an Academy Award for his original score for the Ang Lee film Brokeback Mountain. Last year, he received another Oscar for the score of Babel.
“I like doing it all,” he enthuses. “I love producing other artists for my record label. I love doing music for good films and working with great directors. I love performing live with Bajofondo Tango Club. I feel complete when I do all of these things; I don’t have one task which gratifies me more than the other. What really gives me satisfaction and completion is that I do many things.”
Bajofondo Tango Club has already visited the Czech Republic, performing at Roxy in Prague as well as the Karlovy Vary film festival. The band’s third stint should be just as exhilarating, showcasing material from its highly acclaimed 2003 self-titled debut album, its 2005 follow-up Supervielle and a soon-to-be-released third offering. “We like to think of Bajofondo as a kind of school of aesthetics, with videos and everything,” Santaolalla says. “Our next album is going to be released in September, with some great collaborations from people like Nelly Furtado, Gustavo Cerati and Elvis Costello.”
Other bands worth hearing at the festival include Balkan Beat Box, with its stirring mix of Balkan horns and Middle Eastern rhythms. As you might expect, things tend to get a bit lively; soon brains turn to mush and it’s not just the fans doing the stage-diving, but the band members themselves.
Keeping the tempo going will be the duty of sneering Swedish rockers Mando Diao with their uncompromising Brit-pop-meets-garage-punk manifesto. For some light comic relief, Salsa Celtica is also worth checking out. A 10-piece band hailing from Scotland, Ireland, England, Venezuela and Cuba, its instrumentation includes everything from Scottish pipes and whistles to banjos, fiddle and accordion. No wonder its live sets are usually described as “dynamic.”
“The salsa rhythms and singing, fused with folk tunes from Scotland and Ireland, create a really great dance band,” says trumpeter/band leader Toby Shippey. “We have some brilliant traditional musicians playing a great bunch of instruments, so it’s really exciting and lots of fun.”
Ba Cissoko will bring a taste of Africa to the stage with his unique sound based around the kova, a 21-string harp. In the cathedral, it’s worth checking out Yungchen Lhamo, the reputed queen of Tibetan spiritual music, and Djivan Gasparyan, an Armenian whiz on the duduk. Besides all that, there’s the Idan Raichel Project, representing Israel with a message of “love and tolerance.”
And the Brno-based record label Indies Scope will be showing off its impressive roster of bands, including the popular Yellow Sisters.
For the past two years, the Colours of Ostrava festival has won the prestigious Anděl Award for Best Music Event of the Year. With this year’s lineup, it has a solid shot at making it three in a row.

James Scanlon can be reached at features@praguepost.com


Other articles in Night & Day (11/07/2007):

Browse the Current Issue

If you enjoyed this article, why don't you subscribe to the print version!
We accept secure online transactions provided by PayPal and Moneybookers

Be the first to add a comment!


Full Name: *
City: *
E-mail: **
This comment can be published in the print version of The Prague Post
Enter the text on the right:
 visual captcha
Comment: *
* Required field. In order to be approved for display, comments must have a first and last name and a city.
** E-mails are required and will only be used for internal purposes.

Most visited in Business Listings

Provokator
Hotel booking
The Prague Post Online contains a selection of articles that have been printed in
The Prague Post, a weekly newspaper published in the Czech Republic.
To subscribe to the print paper, click here.
Unauthorized reproduction is strictly prohibited.