A New World Record
Live instrumentation and wide-ranging tunes put Kinky's e-music on the pop track
Kinky is a product of now. The five-man group exists in that netherworld described by academics as "the border region." It's another cultural dimension, where Spanglish is the official language, Mexican supermarkets exist in the United States (where the supermarket was invented), and Frito-Lay chips dominate the shelves south of the border (where the corn chip was born). More than bicultural, however, Kinky is techno-cultural, having embraced the Internet-traded sounds of electronic music and the ever-popular software tools of computer music-making.
"Our gigs are a mix of cultures," says keyboardist Ulises Lozano. "Our influences are Massive Attack, Tricky, Latin jazz, African music."
It's somewhat ironic, then, that the Mexican band's second album, Atlas (released last week), has been criticized for its bilingual lyrics and live rock 'n' roll feel. Part of the problem behind the so-called sophomore slump for musicians is the critics who hold them to their debut sound. In Kinky's case, the group's self-titled first album enlivened the music world with its cinematic electronic melodies and loopy breakbeats. Following in the footsteps of Tijuana's Nortec Collective, the members of Kinky added live musicianship and gritty vocals to their e-music to become the kings of the Latin-electronic sound.
With Atlas, these twentysomething musicians explore their live instrumentation and intimate lyricism even more. The result is heartfelt, irreverent, and cantankerous. Atlas is Kinky's Rubber Soul, an attempt to shake off the bubblegum (self-described as DJ-friendly "decks Mex") while remaining self-effacing and culturally edgy. More than anything, however, the long-player is a statement that, despite all the accolades for e-music prowess ("their music has about as much to do with rock as Jack Daniel's has to do with mescaline," wrote one British critic), Kinky is a rock 'n' roll band with considerable chops.
"Our first album opened a lot of doors," Lozano says. "With this one, we tried to give it a new feeling, and we wanted to approach it more from the live sound of the band."
Right out of the gate, "Presidente" hits listeners with roiling guitar fuzz and sweaty, live drums. In a bout of political discourse, it asks the president of Mexico which color of the Mexican flag he chooses - red, white, or green - and states, "You paint everything in colors instead of black and white." Lozano explains, "In Mexico, we are really extremely rich or extremely poor. It concerns us, of course."
"The Headphonist" explores the nature of sound with a bouncy, Norteno drum beat, a pretty chorus, and quirky lyrics ("I'm walking alone again, with my headphones on ... Every single step becomes a note"). "Snapshot" is the most Beatles-esque tune of the collection, taking the Fab Four's tunefulness into the Mex-tronic realm with accordion loops, beefy tuba-like bass lines, and a celebration of life ("Frame by frame, life continues," goes the chorus).
"It's about capturing these little moments," says singer Gil Cerezo. "You can't translate everything in life, but you can look at life frame by frame."
Atlas has been faulted for its liberal use of English ("Vocalist Gil Cerezo sounds positively goofy whenever he transposes his nonsensical lyrics into English," notes Rolling Stone). But there's something endearing about his metaphysical and sometimes nutty musings (he's a fan of mystic author Gabriel García Márquez). Mexicans can have a silly, schoolboy sense of humor and romance, and that shines through on Atlas. On "Airport Feelings," Cerezo moans, "I've got these airport feelings/all over you/I'm ready for a landing/all over you/Now your skin is my runway/I'm ready to lose."
"We were always flying on tour, and I was trying to express that I want to land over the body of my lover, who was waiting for me," Cerezo says. "The chorus is like a request. I'm waiting to land on the runway of your skin." (Other members of the band giggle.)
"Not Afraid" is a back-to-basics feel-good track with acoustic guitar and a "Yellow Submarine"-like sense of carefree camaraderie. It was cowritten by Itaal Shur, who also cowrote (with matchbox twenty's Rob Thomas) the Grammy-winning Santana hit "Smooth." The song goes, "They say dreams enter from the feet/so they recommend bare feet to sleep," before descending into crunchy, acidic keyboard fuzz.
Percussive chaos in the form of timbales and congas also invades the album, thanks in part to Kinky's time spent in the jungle of the Yucatan peninsula, where the band recorded six of the tracks. The Mexican region juts into the Caribbean, features lush jungles, and is the source of Mexico's black population. "You can almost hear the sound of the insects coming through the keyboards," says bassist-vocalist Cesar Pliego.
The group's time spent in the studio - also including stints in its home state of Monterrey and in Los Angeles - spanned a round table of concepts. "It's a workshop where everybody comes with an idea," says Cerezo. "The ideas come in loops and phrases." The resulting music was piped into a computer for editing, but this time around, the band kept much of the live instrumentation intact, without adding a lot of sampling or looping.
The quintet - also including Carlos Chairez on guitar and Omar Gongora on drums - was nominated for Best Latin/Alternative and Best Latin Rock Album Grammys last year. It was discovered in Monterrey in 1999 by Chris Allison, who has produced records for Coldplay and the Beta Band. The British A&R man was in the area working with Mexican hip-hop group Plastilina Mosh. He signed Kinky to his Sonic360 label, also home to many noted Nortec Collective e-music artists. In 2000, the group won a Battle of the Bands for unsigned acts at New York's Latin Alternative Music Conference. Last year, its eponymous debut made quite a splash. "Hardly radical," stated the U.K.'s Guardian newspaper, "but different enough to make Kinky's groove global while maintaining Latin as the most danceable music ever."
The Kinky boys are decidedly middle class (having been described as "engineers and architecture students"), but they're also consciously fashionable in their trucker hats, vintage T-shirts, and aviator shades. They're pretty boys with soul, but the extent of their kink remains to be seen. Are they freaks, Mexicans, fashion plates, ravers, or rockers? Perhaps their enigma is the result of their built-in contrast and diversity - sort of like Mexico itself, the original crossroads of the world, where Europe met the ancient progeny of Asia.
"We have all these influences," says drummer Gongora. "We're not a rock band or a Latin band or a funk band - we're all of that."
In fact, Cerezo says, Kinky's modern embrace of different flavors is not a marketing ploy, but a cultural necessity born of everyday Mexican life, where a "do what it takes to get by" ethic rules.
"In Mexico, there is a way of doing things," he says. "If your car is broken, you grab your chewing gum, and you use that to fix it. That's how we approach our music. We fix it with strange arrangements, with whatever comes to the table. It's a little unofficial."Published: 12/11/2003
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