“Mucho Martinez”

saturday 9 september 2006

abolipop third birthday

Cultural roots

Abolipop records came to el DF to celebrate a couple of important events on the weekend of the 9^th September. 

First the third birthday of the record label, that started as a concept in 2001 before consolidating in 2003. 

Secondly the night also marked the launch of “everyone has a kid inside” from Jack’s Son, the seventh release from the Guadalajara based label.

Like most small labels, especially in electronica, there is a fairly promiscuous interaction between the artists. Many of the projects within the label see the same people in different musical mindsets.

Aeropuerto and Nebula3 both involve the participation of Israel Martinez, co founder and director of Abolipop.

First in an electronic pop outing with Susana Liceaga started in 2003 which incorporates distance as an interesting dimension in their music, with the protagonists based in Mexico and Germany. 

Then there is Nebula3 with its roots in IDM moving from a passive ambient style in its original form to a more pro-active upbeat approach in its most recent manifestation.

However the focus of the night was on Diego Martinez’s two electronic incarnations Lumenlab and Jack’s son.

Lumenlab represents the first outing of Martinez, started when he was 15.  Thus he could be regarded somewhat as a veteran at 21! 

In 2003 Martinez teamed up with Eric Gamboa to move from refined breakbeat towards an all encompassing "hip-funk-dub-soul-mix" i.e. the birth of Jack’s son. 

By 2005 Jack’s son had evolved into a solo project with Martinez taking control of the musical direction.

Gamboa departed to work as e.lebeau releasing an excellent first ep “two years later” of “ambient folk music” through Soundsister Records.

Martinez has meanwhile looked to collaborations with Bocafloja on the hip hop side, Ruben Tamayo (Fax) with his minimal house, and others, working on top of his challenging fusion of styles.

This tendency towards teamwork is reinforced in live performance as Diego joined up with Eduardo Martinez from The Copy Violators order to create more of a punch and giving the scope for improvisation on stage.

The skill sharing in this area of music in Mexico is both intra and inter-label in form producing the synergy to drive both creative and technical innovation. This is happening to a point where it would almost seem that Mexico's ‘comparative advantage’ lies in this form music.

The amalgamation of the natural networking, on the back of expansion in communication technology, and the ability to make music a free “live experience” through sound and visuals, has consolidated the electronic movement in Mexico to such an extent that foreign expansion seems the logical extension of the process.

Static Discos from Tijuana has nurtured the likes of Murcof and Fax; two artists with growing international reputations using labels such as Leaf and Warp (uk) and Dearstereofan (Spain). In fact Murcof’s latest album “rememberance” was listed by Barcelona music magazine Rockdelux as the only electronica album in their top 50 releases of 2005.

Also Soundsister, Imeca and Konfort are all producing quality, cutting edge electronica that is finding its way to places like Japan and the UK where niche markets are high profile and potentially highly profitable.

Overall the evening was a sound success; Cultural Roots could have been a rather large and uncomfortable context in which to enjoy the ambient sounds of the full collection of Abolipop artists. 

However the enthusiasm of the knowledgeable crowd with many faces from across the electronic scene gave a clear indication of the strength and popularity of this genre of music in general and more specifically Abolipop Records.