Chilean progressive music presents : -------------------------------CANGREJO----------------------------------------- Cecilia García, .. Jose Miguel Candle, .. Juan Valladares, .. David Miranda, .. Mauricio Molina, .. Miguel Salgado, .. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- BIOGRAPHY (combined with some review) : "Cangrejo", like Los Jaivas named themselves after a crab. I wondered why. The group told me they liked several associations with this animal. In the Tarot This animal is seen as a messenger between two worlds, the conscious and the unconscious, the magic and the reality. Another association they liked is that the crab has its skeleton in the outside. Its strength is at first sight. The crab always looks back (because it walks backwards). (-So we can only look to the past. The future is always unknown..-). I was wondering if the crab, creature of the coast was somehow associated with Chile itself. Chile has a very long beach were crabs are of course common place and like the country they move to the side. Cangrejo, formed in 1992 had a very experimental way of composing music. They didn't let themselves limit by any borders. In that way it is very difficult to get definition together for their music. They also don't let themselves categorize very easily. Their goal was also not to let themselves restrict by any rules, but take conscience through music as its self enfolding structure as within states of mind. The style was mainly centred in rock music, but with a lot of other influences (jazz, and others styles in contemporary music, afro-Latin music, etc.). They begun making "long duration - non stop" works (30 min., 45 min., etc.), because the main thing was the trip to the unconscious, to the magic fields of our unknown brain (and heart?). Well, you understand that this trip is not possible in 5 or 7 minutes. This was the first period; they did here works like "Cangrejo de Rokha" (30 min., with a lot of poems of Pablo de Rokha, a great Chilean poet of Neruda's times, but without all his national and international recognition), "Solo de Piano" as a participation in a tribute to the man, performed in the America Room of the National Library ("Piano Solo" is the name of a Nicanor Parra's poem; Parra is the brother of Violeta Parra, and a one of the greatest Chilean poets; he is still alive), and "Song for the Trip" (15 min., a musical experiment with a poem of Josie Tamarin, a Peruvian shaman, about the magical battle with the death; this work was "animated" - digital video- by Cecilia Garcia on 2000). I heard only fragments of such works and it works mind expanding, from free folk till symphonic folk with lots of other adapted styles combined. Mostly dark and light at the same time. The band has received several recognitions, and were twice invited consecutive to the Festival the International Sea of the Jazz - Mountain range (1995, 1996). They also participated in the aid " a young rocker to Germany " organized by the Goethe Institute (German Institute for Chilean Culture), and in the aid of Chilean bands organized by the Association of Workers of Rock (the ATR from Chile). Within their long compositions they adapted fragments of the repertoire of compositions of several Latin American musicians (Lila Downs, Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, Tom Zé, Gema & Pavel, etc.). You can hear Jose Miguel Candela is actually a contemporary composer ; but he combines traditional and new techniques, which is attractive for both more aware and "normal" listeners. Nowadays the group is making songs; some are extracted from the long works, and others are new; and see this as a transition period. I heard one of their beautiful songs. I am curious how this might be adapted later in their new compositions. The group is going to do their first CD this year, but there were a lot of previous "underground" records. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Musical fragments on their website : - Fragment of " Crab ": " Crab " was the first recording of the group, and is collage of different pieces from a greater work, " Song for the trip ", of 1 hour and fraction of duration. Although this last one never was recorded in its totality, we could make this sample for the annual aid of the ATR of Chile. The recording dates from 1993. - Fragment of " Crab of Rokha ": This work consists of 37 minutes in its complete version, with texts of the Chilean poet Pablo de Rokha and other ours. This fragment corresponds in the beginning of the work. The recording was made live, in room SCD (Chilean Society of the Right of Author) of Santiago of Chile, the 15 of October of 1996. - Fragment of " the Fucsia seems dancer ": The text is a free interpretation of the poem " Loose Verses " of great Chilean poet Nicanor Parra. It was recorded in 1997. - Fragment of " Half of You ": Work with samples, sequences, etc. This fragment belongs to the audio-visual work " Noticiario 1957 ", Musical interpretation of the poem "homónimo" of Nicanor Parra, that includes tambié - Fragment of " Crab ": " Crab " was the first recording of the group, and is collage of different pieces from a greater work, " Song for the trip ", of 1 hour and fraction of duration. Although this last one never was recorded in its totality, we could make this sample for the annual aid of the ATR of Chile. The recording dates from 1993. - Fragment of " Crab of Rokha ": This work consists of 37 minutes in its complete version, with texts of the Chilean poet Pablo de Rokha and other ours. This fragment corresponds in the beginning of the work. The recording was made live, in room SCD (Chilean Society of the Right of Author) of Santiago of Chile, the 15 of October of 1996. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Please go back to the Chilean groups page (where you can find the review of Daltonia's album) at http://progressive.homestead.com/CHILI_GROUPS.html by pasting this URL or by using the return button if you were there before. Or go back to the page of Chilean progressive by pasting the next URL : http://progressive.homestead.com/CHILI_PROG.html