ODG142 : Madrid Solo / Autres Directions

 

Cover art by Gustavo Madrid

ODG142 : Madrid Solo / Autres Directions

Gustavo Madrid is the creative force behind several musical projects since his school days: No Mercy, Black Velvet, Maten al Disc-Jockey, Su Real Orden, 69 am, Mutantes Melancólicos (see ODG034), Asustados Unidos, NO:ID., Ensamble Desmembrado (see ODG118) and finally Madrid Solo.

Singer. Guitar player. Sometimes, keyboard player. With a certain interest in digital instruments, where he finds versatility and the possibility of breaking through. Always, songwriter and composer of a music hard to put a label on.

Gustavo

Even though he's got soft manners and a good education, he´s rampant, stubborn and untameable. He can be bored of his successes, but he's never bored when he explores and experiments new ways of making music. He prefers a song composed on a single loop rather than a song that repeats past accomplishments.

On his lyrics he doesn't want to tell stories; he leaves that to a short story or to a novel. For his songs, he prefers sentences that act like lashes, images, ideas; that are musical, without a complete or obvious sense and, if it's possible, the ones that can awaken questions to be left unanswered. 

Madrid owns an enviable record collection. He listens to music since he wakes up in the morning until he goes back to bed at night. He has been collecting records since his teenage years. He affirms that when he didn't have enough money to buy new records he tried hard to get onto busses or subways without paying the fare; so he could save, within a couple of weeks, some money to buy another record. 

One of his passions is record cover art. He believes that the moment he takes out the record from the sleeve to put it on the audio system is pure magic and that most of that magic comes from the graphic art giving sense to the whole oeuvre.

In 2020, during the pandemic lock-down, he started recollecting some writings on his experiences with music listening, music creation and record collecting on the blog.

For this new project, Gustavo Madrid took on a new challenge: create a remix album. Instead of choosing isolated songs from his discography, he decided to produce a companion album for a previously published one and change as he could the concept of its songs.

The album that offered more possibilities on reworking the songs was Side Lane. It has been entirely recorded using a computer, each instrument was isolated and assigned to a sole track, sounds and arrangements could be manipulated individually.

As it was an album where there was not a single percussion track nor other instrument than guitars, he imagined he could start by filling those gaps with drum loops and samples taken from his vast jazz record collection, keyboard arrangements and found sounds that matched the spirit of the project.

Finally, 13 of the 15 songs on Side Lane were remixed and redirected. They were shortened looking for new nuances and distinct atmospheres from the original versions.

Both projects are complementary as they came out of the same source material. Side Lane and Autres Directions stand alone independently because each one of them aim different sensations offering unexpected turns arising from the original sounds.

Astro Chueco:

:

Failing Beat:

Read his blog here.

ALBUM CREDITS

Composed, performed, edited, programmed, recorded, mixed and produced by Gustavo Madrid at El Rosario, Buenos AIres, Argentina, April / July 2020. To rework these new versions of the songs, several elements were taken from the recording sessions of the following albums: Side Lane (MRCD011), Cuenta (MRCD010), Silence (MRCD009), Ojalá pudiera (MRCD004), Cuarenta y ocho azotes (MRCD012). Some sequences programmed in Montréal, Québec, Canada back in 2004 and some vocals taken from demo versions of the songs recorded in 2009 were also used. New arrangements were included and other instrument tracks were recorded with organ, electric piano, synthesiser, trumpet and found sounds. All the instruments were played by Madrid Solo, who also sang all the vocal parts except for the chorus on “Danse Immobile” where Aluh y Jorge Pablo Almejún made their singing contribution. There were other collaborators to this project even if they never knew about its existence: Omar Scavone, Félix D`Argento, Leo Kaplan and Marcelo Pérez. 

This album is dedicated to Felipe Madrid and Patricia Raimundini who during 2020´s pandemic lock-down witnessed the evolution of this project listening to each and every song countless times with tireless patience. 

DISCOGRAPHY 

MUTANTES MELANCÓLICOS 

- Voom voom va hell la (MAD RIDE RECORDS) (1993)

- Mataron a las mujeres, violaron a los caballos (MAD RIDE RECORDS) (1993)

- La vida no les sonríe (MAD RIDE RECORDS) (1994)

- Ojalá pudiera (MAD RIDE RECORDS) (1995)

- Mi reloj biológico no necesita cuerda (MAD RIDE RECORDS / OFF) (1996)

- Malditos, errantes, marginales, desplazados, olvidados, abandonados (MAD RIDE RECORDS) (2011)

ASUSTADOS UNIDOS 

- AaUu (MAD RIDE RECORDS) (1996)

NO:ID. 

- Sing. (MAD RIDE RECORDS / CALAR MUSIC) (2000)

- Sang. (MAD RIDE RECORDS / CALAR MUSIC) (2001)

- Silence. (MAD RIDE RECORDS / CALAR MUSIC) (2003)

- Acoustic. (MAD RIDE RECORDS / CALAR MUSIC) (2011)

MADRID 

- Cuenta (MAD RIDE RECORDS) (2000)

MADRID SOLO 

- Side Lane (MAD RIDE RECORDS) (2014)

- Autres Directions (Side Lane revisited, reworked, remixed, revamped & redirected) (MAD RIDE RECORDS / OFF) (2020)

Digital release on the 7th of May 2021.

Track listing with Gustavo comment on each song:

1: Amarga Espina

The melody for this song was written in Montréal in 2005. I remember myself thinking that I was stuck in the song style I used for the album “Silence” by NO:ID., so, I decided to stop making music for some time to find a new path. I think it was worth it. 

2: Densa Danza

I started playing tirelessly the main guitar riff on this song in September 2008 when I relocated myself back to Buenos Aires after living in Montréal for more than five years. I liked it so much that I couldn't stop playing it even if it could have been enough for my new neighbours, who claimed for silence desperately.

3: Misère Cachée

I recorded the first ideas for this song in Montréal in 2007 using a bass guitar and a loop station to improvise three different bass lines that intertwine to build what later became a musically solid loop.

4: Stop Dead

To create this song I decided to overlay riffs to create a sound collage. I used several ideas taken from improvisations I've recorded in Montréal to create arrangements that offered different points of view. I wanted every part to sound as it belonged to another song.

5: Failing Beat

On this song I used some arrangements that I´ve written for “Densa Danza”. Even if the two songs are intimately related it is hard to find this relationship on the final versions without losing the pure joy of the music you are listening to. 

6: Weeping Road

I started writing this song in December 2011, the same week my son was born. I recall myself singing the refrain to him while he was sleeping. Perhaps that's the reason why he likes the music I make. Who knows?

7: Life Ahead

I've always loved the rhythm guitar I played on the song “Próxima Vida” by Mutantes Melancólicos, back in 1996. I decided to record it again with some new arrangements. From the original song, only the lyrics and some chords were left. Who cares? I found a new path for the song. A new life ahead. A way out.

8: Icy Blue

The three main arpeggios on this song were written in Buenos Aires in 2008 in order to create some kind of mantric loop that never got to be relaxing. The spanish lyrics were taken from a song I´ve started to write in Montréal some years before, perhaps in 2005. Some kind of tango with too many words that I managed to cut out and synthesise to keep just a few words of interest that made up some nonsense.

9: Danse Immobile

The first sketches for this song were born in 2009 while I was trying to create arrangements for some lyrics a friend of mine has written. He wanted me to write the music for his songs. Back in 1998, when I wrote the song “Fix”, recorded by NO:ID. a year later, this same friend has given me other texts to help him create the music. Unfortunately, none of his songs were finished but, in the process, some of the discarded elements I've written helped me to give birth to two of my own songs.

10: Stagnant Tears

This is the third reinterpretation of the melody I´ve used on the songs “Lágrimas Artificiales” and “Gotas de Lágrimas Artificiales”, both recorded by Mutantes Melancólicos. This time, some verses of the song were written in french. The next version, will it be written in spanish?

11: Astro Chueco

This is one the first songs I've written in Montréal in 2003. It took me a great effort to clean up the spirit that attached its first versions to my previous album “Silence”. This is a song that resists mutations and that's what I love about it. Don´t be surprised if I decide to transform it again and again.

12: Mutantes Melancólicos

I wrote the first and original version of this song back in 1992. Years later, in 1995, I recorded a different version for the album “Ojalá Pudiera” by Mutantes Melancólicos only using three instruments: electric piano, trumpet and slide guitar. On this third version, I´ve tried to preserve some of the original ideas. Just a few of them.

13: Hollow Breeze 

In 2010, while I was listening to the tapes I´ve been recording with my different projects all over the years to start with the mastering process in order to press the CD versions of my old albums, I found a rehearsal recording with the first version of this song. I recall that for the album “Silence”, I wanted to record and include several short songs that only lasted one chorus. Born out of this idea, “Breeze” was written in 2002. After so many years waiting to find its place, it evolved: two new verses were written and the sound grew up to become devastating.

And on Bandcamp: