When the millennium arrived, we only received bad news from Argentina. Whilst the newscasts kept us informed about the chaotic situation the country was going through, this trio from Buenos Aires sent us a kind sonic postcard from the sea, a collection of placid, delicate, dreamy songs. Their records are among those that truly make you daydream with your eyes wide open.
ENTRE RÍOS is formed by Sebastián Ca…
When the millennium arrived, we only received bad news from Argentina. Whilst the newscasts kept us informed about the chaotic situation the country was going through, this trio from Buenos Aires sent us a kind sonic postcard from the sea, a collection of placid, delicate, dreamy songs. Their records are among those that truly make you daydream with your eyes wide open.
ENTRE RÍOS is formed by Sebastián Carreras, Gabriel Lucena and Isol. Sebastián is also the owner of indie label Índice Virgen, where he has released in Argentina several anthologies by such Elefant artists as LE MANS or Ana D. He writes the songs and the lyrics. Afterwards, Gabriel (a sound engineer for a living) transforms the songs into marvellous soundscapes, full with ideas and touches of great taste. To complete the process, Isol gives colour to the songs, which achieve a live of their own with her delicious accent and her ethereal voice. Isol dedicates her time to many artistic duties: she writes stories for children, she works as an illustrator, and she sings in a baroque music ensemble, even though with ENTRE RÍOS she sings in a pure pop context.
Sebastián and Gabriel started working together under the name of TUS HERMOSOS, and they even recorded an album. At the same time, Sebastián met Isol and offered her to sing a track which, even though it came out as TUS HERMOSOS, it meant the debut of ENTRE RÍOS.Índice Virgen released in Argentina two EPs by ENTRE RÍOS which were acclaimed by the specialized press: they turned out to be the most innovative and special recordings to come out that year, and they quickly got to the pole position in their country's avant-garde scene. In March 2001, Elefant released “Litoral”, a vinyl single which helped ENTRE RÍOS be known and listened to outside Argentina.
In Mayo 2002 they released “Idioma suave”, ENTRE RÍOS' debut album: thirteen songs that show the trio's possibilities; elegance, personality and beauty that caused commotion among pop fans everywhere. In November, ENTRE RÍOS came to Europe to play live the songs on “Idioma Suave”, and they advanced some of the songs on their second album, “Sal”, finally released in April 2003. “Sal” joins in an almost organic way pop and electronica, which is achieving more and more space in their creative process. The outcome is a record with a wide open style pattern, where we can find winding melodies and delicate pop passages, along with clearly electronic and avantgardist languages. A record of electronic-emotional music, but with its eyes put on a pop horizon and keeping that delicious dreamy language they expressed so well on their first album.
By the end of 2004 they included their song “Litoral” on the compilation record that goes along with the book “Curvas Peligrosas”, by well known Argentinian illustrator Maitena. In this record appears music chosen by the illustrator herself, and ENTRE RÍOS share this space with such contemporaries as Ana D, Juana Molina or Axel Krygier.
Taiwan's label Avant Garden Records releases in their territory “Idioma Suave”, joining American label Darla Records, which had already recorded both this album and also “Sal” in the United States.In 2005, Mexican label Zafra Música releases a compilation with the band's first recordings, and Canadian label Endearing Records (Julie Doiron...) releases a split single featuring ENTRE RÍOS and American synth-pop band MY FAVORITE, as a part of their Intercontinental Pop Exchange series. These series feature split singles shared by artists from different countries and different continents who also share a similar style and can appeal to similar audiences. Other artists featured in previous deliveries of these series have been SPEARMINT, THE LESLIES and ORWELL.
At least we can announce the release of the new album by ENTRE RÍOS, a new delivery of dreamy, experimental electronic pop from this Argentinian threesome that is slowly conquering the hearts of modern pop aficionados all over the world. This is their third album, even though it's the second one theyconceived as such ("Idioma suave" wasn't but a compilation of previous works). It took them three years to finally achieve this goal after the great feedback and the many concerts they did introducing "Sal" (2002) to the world, but the wait's been well worth it. After some time waiting for a reason or a signal exciting enough to make them start a new recording, in January 2005 they decided to just do a record they could enjoy playing live, which was honest and natural, which sounded as real people playing with their instruments. So they thought about synthesizers, real time sound modulations and work on these sounds following each track's own demanding atmosphere. Gabriel started playing his keyboards and recording them on his computer over the songs Sebastián kept passing him. Some of them didn't even have Isol's vocals on them, but the urgence and anxiety to listen to new tracks made them work so quickly. Between January and March 2005 they finished "Onda": so quick, so simple, an Argentinian summer record.
"Onda". Wave. We must talk about the meaning of this word in Argentinian: anything that's any good must have "onda". So this was also a simple decision: this record needed some "onda"! But musically, too, the title of the record tells us about the wave frequence modulations that form the sounds, a resource that has been largely used on this record to create the sounds from the synthesizers. On this note, in "Onda" ENTRE RÍOS confirm once and for all their love for that mixture of pop and electronica (as if FAMILY had been aware of Morr Music's catalogue, as they were once defined, although in this record everything gets simpler) that makes them so fascinating, and the sound of the synthesizers prevails all along the new record. There some keyboard sounds that sound very 80's, but in the context of electronic manipulation and the craft of songs already known from the ENTRE RÍOS catalogue. In "Drama", a song that has more than one stylistic wink to FAMILY (which adds to the fact that, once more, the beautiful artwork has been designed by Javier Aramburu), Isol sings: "I have fallen for doing ambient noise / I fell for digital noise". All of a statement for a band working on the present day, making pop music that sounds current and new, as it should be with any pop music.
Some of the tracks which form "Onda" were already a part of their live repertoire before they were recorded. This was something new for the band from Buenos Aires. We're talking about songs like "Cerca & extraño", "De tener" (one of the most sticky and easy-to-singalong on the record, along with "Claro que sí") and "Tantas veces", which went everywhere with the band on their tours during almost a year. The rest of the songs were written as they were recorded in the studio, but the outcome is equally brilliant in both cases. In the end, the music by ENTRE RÍOS sounds gorgeous and unique, dreamy ("La luna" is pure daydream) and light as a summer breeze (the melody on "Ya no me sorprendés", or the liquid arrangements on "Odisea"), but without giving heir backs to some reality bites in the form of a poetic protest. In the words of Sebastián, composer of the songs on this fantastic record by ENTRE RÍOS: "my bandmates laugh at me when I tell them that we wrote a protest song on this album, it's called "Sobra". I wrote it because I never get used to see people eating and picking up trash in the streets of Buenos Aires, the city where we live in...".
