Banda Elastica - Aqui, Alla Y Aculla (2013) RE-UP

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Banda Elastica - Aqui, Alla Y Aculla (2013) RE-UP

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With this release Aqui, allay aculla, Banda Elastica celebrates its thirtieth anniversary. As fast as possible, our most expensive asset: time, present when we listen to ourselves in retrospective. Diluted decades in a few petrified glimpses with a specific weight and an element of their own… the facts the way they were, no regrets because the past is at its best and what a production to prove it!

Banda Elastica. Thirty years.

At the beginning of the eighties, the rock scenario in Mexico started showing signs of vitality. After a long process of hibernation, the bands, styles and venues finally got together to set the proper means for its growing.
For the other music, the one branded as experimental and far from those days trends, this effervescence was likely to be the best idea to look for its consolidation; however, reality was adverse and from a batch of bands interested in exploring other paths, mainly instrumental music, only a few survived.

Under these circumstances, a group of friends got together to play not with a preconceived idea, but for the mere goal of sharing thoughts and devotions. They could never imagined how these dynamics, ludicrous and uncompromised, would take them to give the chaos a shape and to found a band, called after various failed shots, Banda Elastica.
Guitar player, Guillermo Gonzalez says that at the beginning this name seemed more like a bad joke, “but then it all began to make sense as the members had different musical roots. Some came from classic school; other were more in the jazz field and other had experience in rock music. This way the elasticity began making sense because each member had it own way of composing and playing in their own way”.

In terms of discography, the band debuted with an eponymous EP (Banda Elastica, 1985). Besides Gonzalez on guitar, there were Jose Navarro (xylophone, percussions), Rodolfo Nava (drums), Jose Luis Romero (sax and clarinets), Lucio Sanchez, (bass) and Rosino Serrano (synthesizer, piano and organ). This first effort, stylistically still undefined and hard to find in its original format nowadays, the music acts as a draft, something about to be in the future.
It was in 1986 when the first self titled album saw the light. A non-defined sound persists. The sextet had one foot on the rock side, the other on the jazz side, but also the desire of stepping into other territories, missing a map to allow them to do so. They showed an experimental approach like no one in Mexico and their introduction to public but also set them into the realms of isolation, their decision of trying to find a sound of their own set them apart from the possibilities of being part of a scene called either rock, jazz or fusion, fragile and incipient at that time. From that very moment, BE started the search towards a new, risky path, walked by not many.

This was the way one of its main trade marks was born: Its avocation for shape changing, its thirst for mutation, trade mark that, along with its tendency to experimentation and to avoid cliches, has impulsed the band and each of its members forward.

With Banda Elastica 2 (1989), the band showed not only a line up change -Lucio Sanchez was substituted by Sosimo Hernandez and Guillermo Portillo was added on flute and alto sax- it was its sound that became different, passing from the primal eclecticism to jazz, later one of the main languages, and they also mixed elements of contemporary music creating a new musical blend that led the band to rock in opposition.

Focused on avant-garde movements, BE started building a solid reputation as one of the most daring bands in the experimental Mexican scene, needless to say this is a one of a kind band.
Thankfully, there are a lot of vivid moments of creativity, despite the departure of Jose Luis Romero, and the hard work allows consolidating a recognizable sound crystallized in Los Awakates de Nepantla (1994), an album plethoric in turns and characterized by a playful tone where and exciting management of the compositions can be found, from the “Micropiezas” reminiscent of rock in opposition to the long instrumental mannerisms like “Mascara vs Cabellera”, “Suite Regresiva” о “Francisco”, “Ranulfo” у “Lula”.

After a decade of work, BE finally finds a temporary niche when branded as a rock in opposition band, term that took Jose Navarro to urge these words: “The most interesting thing here is that there are young musicians around the world with other goals than rock. It is normal that we had products that are alike because music is universal; they are soaked in traditional European classical music, eastern, jazz and rock, and so we are; besides that, we have folk roots, which give us the opportunity of being different, of achieving all these information in a different way”.

This folkloric approach, this country’s tradition lightly insinuated in the band’s opus, flourished with a bigger determination in Maquizcoatl(1996), a record in which the sextet explored the sounding possibilities of ethnic instruments, adapting them to a more contemporary concept. The band didn’t want to recreate an atmosphere nor evoking the past, but to exploit an astonishing rhythmic richness facing it with a modern method of composition. This move meant the opening for new ways in the usage of pre-Columbian instruments and for the band itself, due to period of uncertainty because three of its members moved to other cities.
In Maquizcoatl, the band begun experimenting with different instrumental approaches and when they started planning a new production, these approaches were once more present for the edition of Catalogo de Tiraderos (1997). In this production, with the exception of one track, most of the improvisations, called “Tiraderos”, do not even reach the mark of two minutes and the general atmosphere moves towards abstraction and deconstruction. BE put in this catalogue all the things the band wanted to achieve during its life: Free jazz, rock in opposition, chamber music, contemporary sounds.

Despite the ruling abstraction, the amorphous of some tracks, there is a common link amongst them, a trade mark forged through the years. It is an identity characterized by an joyful attitude the band has spread up and which is noticeable in the titles of the compositions, just a signal and hardly portraying the content within, but with lots of humour and quite relaxed for a type of music that refused to stay in a greyish area.

After this collection of improvisations, BE changed once more. Juan Alzate (sax) and Luis Miguel Cos-tero (drums), join the band as the substitutes for Rodolfo Nava and Rosino Serrano. With that new line up BE gave us what is the last studio recording, Ai Tencargo (2003), an album that, says Jose Navarro, “took lots of rehearsal time, the playing of the compositions are very complex. The title is ironic, because it was something we thought it was going to be quite simple but it ended up being a very complex project, the amount of time spent in it brought enormous difficulties with it”.

The pieces in this disc belong to contemporary composers that are very representative of their generation and that have written very interesting music, they were also people who we have relation with and who showed interested in the project”.
Ai Tencargo is the most radical production of the sextet. Far from rock or jazz and, at the same time with a lot of common points with both genera but, generally speaking, it moves towards contemporary music, other languages that, in relation with each member of the band, are explored for the first time, commissioned, pieces wrote by a handful of composers that are representative within an academic circle capable of recognizing self sufficiency in music conservatories is impractical nowadays and that are convinced the only way of reinvent themselves is no other but borrowing the sounds and influences from the streets.

BE turns 30. A non impressive number in the national music scene where longevity begins to be normal; but if we take into consideration the different ground the band has moved, and the summit it had to conquer, the number gets greater. In three decades they have become an isolated territory inside the Mexican music: Way exquisite for rockers, adventurous in excess for jazz lovers and a bit too joyful for the academic circles. They dwell in limbo and have found the mechanism for moving forward and to offer a different face on each recording attempt, reason why the sextet remains fresh, spontaneous and radical. Jose Navarro says that “Not many of the first public that listened to our earlier albums remain these days. This is the result of how the people start waiting for something defined and that’s not what we want, because this takes you to a comfort zone which we simply don’t like to be part of".

~ David Cortes

Cronology:

Leon Miralda, Guillermo Gonzalez, Rossino Serrano, Lucio Sanchez, Jose Navarro, Rodolfo Nava у Jose Luis Romero gave their first concert as Banda Elastica in the Casa Popular of the Delegacion Magdalena Contreras. Leon Miralda leaves the band and Cecilia Valdes arrives. An eponymous EP including three compositions is released. Banda Elastica, the first band’s album is released. BE makes its first and only appearance in Rockotitlan, forum dedicated only to rock. Cecilia Valdes leaves and Guillermo Portillo joins the band whereas Lucio Sanchez abandons the ship and Sosimo Hernandez takes over. They perform in Lima, Peru. Banda Elastica 2 is edited. They visit Spain and carry out two performances in La Casa de America in Madrid, Spain. Jose Luis Romero leaves the group. The third BE production, Los Awakates de Nepantla is released. They play in Knitting Factory and at the University of Hostos in New York, USA, with Miguel Samperio in saxophone. Maquizcoatl is released. Rosino Serrano leaves the band. Catalogo de Tiraderos is edited. Rodolfo Nava leaves the group and is substituted by Luis Miguel Costero. Ai Tencargo, with the collaboration of Juan Alzate and Dave Barrett, the sixth production of BE is released into the market. 2006, Ismael Palo-mares joins the band. BE has a couple of concerts in Trondheim and Oslo, Norway. In 2008 BE turns 25 and ever since has been aligned by Luis Miguel Costero, Guillermo Gonzalez, Sosimo Hernandez, Jose Navarro and Guillermo Portillo. With this release Aqui, allay aculla, BE celebrates its thirtieth anniversary.
As fast as possible, our most expensive asset: time, present when we listen to ourselves in retrospective. Diluted decades in a few petrified glimpses with a specific weight and an element of their own… the facts the way they were, no regrets because the past is at its best and what a production to prove it! Thanks you, Pals for having given your most cherished asset to this my plenty past.

~ Guillermo Portillo

When a project covers a 30 year path, it acquires a life of its own and certain autonomy in respect of those who comprise it. This is the case of Banda Elastica: we made it, it made us and it seems it walks on its own although we remain still…

~ Guillermo Gonzalez Phillips

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