The idea was to mix pure
sounds of jazz and free jazz with ambient and analogue music. In January
1999 4 tracks were recorded that were finally used in the film - Envano, Verde
Vertigo, Livingroom and Finale. This work was recorded in the house-studio
NO+STUDIO and then produced and remixed in Santiago and London
by Graham Wakefield, who completed final production.
Graham Wakefield had flown to Chile with friends, to DJ, produce & organise parties throughout the country - becoming known and sought after artists in the local scene. Seeking out collaborators for more exploratory projects, Graham met Philipe Boisier, bassist in local goth/indie group Luna en Caelo, returning from a revelationary trip to France, himself looking for like minded musicians for a film soundtrack project. Guillermo Dumay, guitarist/keyboardist for highly successful Chilean psychedelic punk group 'Pánico', along with invited artists Oscar Bustamente [drummer], Nicolas Spencer [saxophonist], Sebastian Arce [drummer] in early 1999.
Live they alternate between [often radically] distinct versions of tracks,
improvising with standard instrumentation and sound experimentation with magnetic
tapes, glass-ringing, virtual oscillators, laptop processing amongst other
elements. Mambotaxi has performed live in many locations in Santiago and beyond,
including clubs, halls, theatres, cinemas, universities and even a metro station,
and on the national radio Universidad de Chile a number of times.
In July 1999 MAMBOTAXI signed for Combo Discos (Santiago) in order to release an LP. In December 1999, after playing with Holden, MAMBOTAXI launched their first release, the "AMANDA & SIMON" EP, in a concert at La Batuta (Santiago). The group played many times in the Sala Shakespeare (Chile). In one new session for 'Perdidos en el Espacio' for the national Radio Universidad de Chile four new tracks were recorded - Mar Bravo, Veetl, Pleamar and Isla Seca, along with Envano from the 'Amanda and Simon' EP. Mambotaxi played this time as a trio (Boisier, Dumay & Wakefield).
The group continued to write improvised live and electronic music together, with many live performances and radio performances in Santiago and beyond, a number of releases, and further soundtrack work. Mambotaxi's last performance in Chile (before the various members departed to France & the UK) was at the Radio Universidad de Chile as part of a celebration of the Perdidos en el Espacio show's tenth anniversary.
Acoustic & electronic flavours, dub/glitch techniques; instruments as an invitation to play… People said: “made me roll around on the floor with my bean bag filled with happiness, wanting to trip out - makes me think of days by sea, deep recesses of the mental - I'd listen to it on a sunny afternoon, or to freak my head out at night - sounds like the stuff I would like to do...”
Chauffeurs of the Chilean postrock: The unprejudiced fusion of rock, bossanova, jazz and electronics also has its local authors.
The group is called Mambotaxi, but the music is far from being kitsch, and much less tropical. What this trio comprised of Philippe Boisier (25 years, bass, guitar, keyboards, sequences and percussion), Juan Guillermo Dumay (24, guitar, bass, keyboards, tapes and percussion) and the Englishman Graham Wakefield (25, production in PC, shakers, harmonica, keyboards, percussion and programming) creates, is an unprejudiced instrumental and experimental mixture of commonly other styles, like the rock, jazz and electronics. And that is a characteristic that closely ties them to the musical current denominated Post Rock, initiated in the middle of the nineties, and which today means bands like Tortoise, Labradford, Main, Jim ORourke, Gastr del Sol and Mogwai.
"What we have in common with those groups is the rupture with the traditional image of rock'n'roll, where to be a certain group, making certain things and to responding to certain formulas and certain times", explains Boisier, installed in his office of architecture, while by the loudspeakers of the hi-fi dark tones emanate. He adds that "it is people who do not feel forced to have to make the same work. You ask yourself what is this music and I do not believe that you can define it positively, because it incorporates everything. Here the prejudice to say that I cannot play that because I do not know what it is is not possible to say. That distance brings you much more freshness. "
The best sample of its proximity to that current is its first album, Amanda and Simón (1999), a suggestive work of sonorous textures created to musicalize the short film 'That Scent', of Manuela Heimann, and published through the independent label Combo Discos.
After diverse changes of members, Mambotaxi today works in a particular way: Boisier and Dumay which parallelly they play in the group Panic compose material in Santiago and they send it to England, where Wakefield lives, so he can work on it. And their methods are surprising. "Almost all the disc Amanda and Simón was done by parts. We recorded long sessions of single drumkit, later in the computer we published pieces and we put them in loop. The same with the low one. One was to improvise an idea of half an hour and later choosing the best parts to transform them into a song of three minutes. "
Boisier admits that the resulting amalgam is not easy to commercialize in Chile."The reality is that within this type of music, one prefers to spend money in buying a foreign disc instead of a Chilean one. The true local distribution is much more by pirate bootleg and radio, for that reason I work much with radio programs like Lost in the Space, Interphase or the one of Rolando Ramos in the Pop & Rock."
In his opinion, the work of Mambotaxi is rather like a gift for a limited public.
Raul Marquez M. [translation by Babelfish.com]
Envano - compressed 96kbps MP3.
Verde Vertigo - compressed 96kbps MP3.
Drift - compressed 96kbps MP3.
Mar Bravo - compressed 96kbps MP3.
1. Verde Vertigo Part 1
2. Livingroom
3. Envano
4. Paris Sessions
5. Verde Vertigo Part 2
6. Livingroom (Remix)
Recordings of live sessions for the radio program 'Perdidos en el Espacio',
Radio Universidad de Chile, tracks 1-5 from August 1999, tracks 6-10 from February
2000:
1. Panamericana
2. Aryanne
3. Verde Vertigo
4. Livingroom
5. Camino Lisboa
6. Pleamar
7. Mar Bravo
8. Veetl
9. Isla Seca
10. Envano
Three
of the above recordings were included on a compilation CD issued by the radio
station after the event.
http://www.sobras.com/perdidos/
http://www.sobras.com/perdidos/compilados.html
http://www.frentesonora.cl/reportajes.htm
Track 1 of this compilation of remixes for Pánico by Mambotaxi, tracks 3 and 9 by Graham Wakefield.
