About Me
"I was having a nice strong drink at the Shanghai Tunnel the other day and they were playing his record, el mango y la luna caribe. To put it in over-simplified terms (because Im super busy this week as usual), Id say it was sort of like Beck with a Mexican twist. Sure, that might have been the superb Sauza tequila influencing my perceptions, but it sounded damn good. This is subtle stuff on the surface, which I generally prefer over the hordes of in your face bullshit that is so much easier to pull off, covering your mistakes with distortion. But also under the surface, even with the brief listen I had, I could tell there is a depth and complexity to this music. To put it in more local terms, IdM say its akin to some of Charlie Bradshaws finest moments"
-http://www.bubbasmonkey.com/
Solo dos en Tijuanaa night-jaded, bilingual Hank Williams type of guy, with a Danny Elfman/tequila twistis pretty freaking awesome. And Vanishing Kids just got a new line-up.
-www.portlandmercury.com
Solo Dos en Tijuana El Mango y la Luna Caribe Self-release CDR For some reason the genres of Easy Listening (i.e. Lounge Music) and Avant-Garde (or, if you prefer, Experimental Music) are often thought of as being diametrically opposed to each other. Hummable tunes rooted in early jazz tradition meant to lull and relax are not supposed to get along well with power electronics, noise, and dissonance. This flies in the face of evidence provided by artists as venerable as Spike Jones and Enoch Light and as contemporary as Tom Waits and Ute Lemper. Really, if you dig into RE:Searchs Incredibly Strange Music book series youll find innumerable lesser name weirdos who sought to make mellow, ultra-listenable songs by playing the kitchen sink. Portland, Oregon is now the proud home of a current such phenomena in Solo Dos en Tijuana. I recently read a rather clueless review of this group in a local publication that compared them to traditional Marimba music purely because their name is in Spanish, and the singer often sings in that language. A listen to their excellent album El Mango y la Luna Caribe finds this to only be about half the time. The music is primarily produced with stand-up bass, brushed drums, and acoustic (occasionally electric) guitar, and some simple studio effects and trickery that would make the aforementioned Enoch Light nod in approval. About the only thing El Mango and the group which produced it have in common with Marimba is that this is fun music. A beautiful irreverence characterizes the playing and lo-fi recording, without making the music any less pleasant to listen to. Singer Jorge Alvarezs voice is deep and scruffy, somehow conveying emotion and detachment at once. A really cool cover of the Beatles song For No One from Revolver is included, making a firm connection to the Lounge tradition of covering the Fab Four. The cover heightens rather than diminishes the sadness of the original, but for the most part the orginals are all about uptempo. Perhaps the Spanish numbers seem a bit more romantic since Spanish is a romance language. The Tom Waits influence is obvious, but not annoying, on a couple songs, particularly the faux gospel Lord. The same could probably be said for a Sebadoh influence too, particularly on Belle of Third. This isnt music that will start revolutions or overthrow governments, but once that work is done you will want a copy of El Mango y la Luna Caribe for the party afterwards. That is, if you cant get Solo Dos en Tijuana to play live instead.
-Jim McAdams
"He is one man, Jorge Alvarez and put together this album in his Brooklyn bedroom, busying himself with obscure techniques and the price of weed. He called on a group of friends to collaborate and before long a record had taken shape, fusing his mariachi stylings with the music of so many other genres. Like Beirut’s utterly unmissable ‘Gulag Orkestar’ from earlier this year, Solo Dos En Tijuana does the same thing but in place of Eastern Europe we have Southern Europe and South America; baking hot, empty saloons, broken bottles of cervesa, beautiful women. It’s a different world and Jorge Alvarez manages to replicate this perfectly in his recordings, just take the lo-fi ‘Copacabana’, it almost sounds as if they’re playing in a dusty restaurant, people walking in and out occasionally hitting a can or two and chatting mindlessly in the background. The entire album has this heat haze of Spanish history, and that’s what makes it so unavoidably addictive. I’m not sure where this came from but trust me, if you want a taste of the mariachi’s side of life then sup on your tequila and give Solo Dos En Tijuana a spin…"
-http://www.boomkat.com
"In fact it could be the perfect soundtrack to an afternoon sitting around the apartment enjoying a few Tecate’s. His music is kind of like if Tito Fuente grew up listening to college radio, or smoked a lot pot then jammed with Calexico. Bilingual songs that hit the mark more often than not. ‘Lord’ has a bluesy/gospel delivery with a chanted back up vocals while ‘Chicano Cubano’ is Waitish in it’s idiosyncratic recording and delivery Highlights though are the beautiful ‘La Guaria’ and ‘Mango Podrido’ with it’s dark funeral march feel to it"
-http://www.screamingbloodymess.com
Solo Dos En Tijuana versammelt eine Auswahl der bisherigen Werke des Künstlers, die bislang nur auf umständlichen Wegen zu erstehen waren. Überwiegend in spanischer Sprache singt Solo Dos En Tijuana tragische Liebeslieder, spielt beschwörerischen Folk und reduzierten Höllenblues zwischen Tom Waits und Devendra Banhart. Solo Dos En Tijuana ist Musik für Liebhaber und durchaus nicht auf den Lagerfeueraspekt zu reduzieren. Zum Eintauchen, Abschweifen und Entfliegen ist der feine Lo-Fi- Folk hervorragend geeignet.
-Fine Tune Shop
