Café Tacuba Album: “Avalancha de Exitos”

Description :

Personnel: Anonimo (vocals, guitar); Alejandro Flores (vocals, violin); Joselo Rangel (acoustic & electric guitars, background vocals); Gustavo Santaolalla (acoustic guitar, percussion, background vocals); Emmanuel Del Real (guitar, piano, programming, background vocals); Quique Rangel (guitar, acoustic bass, background vocals); Alejandro Montano (guitar); Pavel Farkas (violin); Ramon Flores (bugle); Bob Leatherbarrow (vibraphone); Rafael Gonzalez, Luis Conte, Aaron Plunkett (percussion); David Byrne (background vocals). Producers: Gustavo Santaolalla, Anibal Kerpel. Engineers: Tony Peluso, Anibal Kerpel, John Hendrickson. Recorded at El Ensayo, Naucalpan, Mexico and Track Record, Los Angeles, California. All tracks have been digitally mastered using HDCD technology. AVALANCHA DE EXITOS was nominated for a 1998 Grammy Award for Best Latin Rock/Alternative Performance. Defying natural expectations, this is certainly no ordinary cover album. The Grammy-nominated AVALANCHA DE EXITOS is Mexican alt-outfit Cafe Tacuba's tribute to some of their favorite songwriters. While there's none of their own material to be found here, AVALANCHA is surely one of the finest, most inventive, effervescent Latin-alternative recordings of the '90s. Gustavo Santaolalla and Anibal Kerpel get points for putting a bright production sheen on all the madness. "Chilanga Banda" crawls along like a funky snake, with entertaining nonsense lyrics sprayed out with rhythmic abandon. Nacho Cano's "No Controles" offers sneering vocals and acoustic guitar riffery that lands like a brick, ultimately leading to an exotic vocal harmony and jaw-harp reverie. The soft, operatic "No Me Comprendes" slowly builds into a lovely, spacious reference to Jobim's "Wave," with piano, vibraphone, and atmospheric bird calls. Loosely based on the version by the Ventures, the old favorite "Perfidia" is rendered as a haunting instrumental with a curious combination of bowed upright bass, bleeps and bloops, strings, synth-drum programming, and vibrato guitar. Singer/fiddler Alejandro Flores then tears into a stirring acoustic take on merenguero Juan Luis Guerra's jewel, "Ojala Que Llueva CafT" ("I Hope It Rains Coffee in the Countryside").

In the States not everybody knows this Cafe Tacuba CD is a tribute to all the songwriters and singers they've admired and received influence from. I only gave them 4 stars because they made covers from other people's songs and didn't give us some new material. But I love their "alarmala de tos" version (the original is Botellita de Jerez's), because it's so strong it makes you really get scared about it's tragic story. "Como te extrano" version (original from Leo Dan), makes me go back in time when I was 8. But the best is "Cuando llueva Cafe", this song from Juan Luis Guerra is performed in a beautiful "huapango" style and Anonimo (the lead Vocal) sings it so well. But wait to hear the new double album "reves-yo soy". They just keep getting better and growing up!

This is probably one of the best albums as far as cover albums go. They covered a few recent hits such as Botellita de Jerez's Alarmala de Toz, which actually sounds better than the original. They also cover the girl band Flan's No Controles in such a way that you would never imagine a male band to cover. They also bring back the popular classic Como te Extrano by Leo Dan. Overall this has to be a very enjoyable album by one of today's most entertaining and best of the spanish rock bands. Cafe Tacuba Rules.