Roaring out of Colombia in the mid-’90s, Aterciopelados established itself as one of the top rock en Español act that gained international exposure in that decade. The act traces its roots to the short-lived romantic entanglement of singer Andrea Echeverri and bassist Héctor Buitrago. While that relationship and the initial band that formed around it did not last, eventually the two found their creative partnership merited overcoming the romantic split. With Andrés Giraldo on drums and Charlie Márquez on bass, the group threw traditional Latin musics in the mixer with punk, new wave and metal, gave it a vigorous shake and created a heady cocktail as fun and head-spinning as Os Mutantes had done at their best. Soon Echeverri and Buitrago went Steely Dan and the band fractured with a rotating cast of support working with the duo. (Drummer Mauricio Montenegro and guitarist Alejandro Gómez-Cáceres were mainstays through much of the period between the first two albums and the hiatus that began in 2011.)
This merry-go-round allowed Echeverri and Buitrago to modify the band’s sound over time. Rock elements were downplayed as the two moved in more electronic and pop directions. After their fifth album, the band took an extended break for Echeverri to have a child, and Buitrago began his side project Conector. While the band reunited, both kept their side work active until Aterciopelados went on hiatus for a couple of years. Echeverri and Buitrago reunited as a touring in act in 2014, and began releasing albums again in 2018. Besides their music, Echeverri and Buitrago both have gained notoriety for the political activism on environmental and justice issues in Colombia.
Con el Corazón en la Mano (1993) – Talent that hasn’t fully jelled into songs. Low-fi that undercuts the power. But also enthusiasm that blows past the limitations so that the pieces impress even if they aren’t as well assembled as they will be. They’ll never sound this punk again, and you might wonder about the alternate timelines where they maintained that emphasis, but the transgressive reveling in violence and noise that youth love to partake of wears a bit thin, so it’s the nascent songwriting you treasure. Grade: B
El Dorado (1995) – With that blast of initial excitement past, they settle down and figure out how to turn live songs into studio output, which means making sure those songs rely on writing, not just momentum. Helps, too, that the music isn’t so muffled. But really it comes down to them taking the Latin American garage rock tradition, leaning hard into that Latin descriptor and making music that’s bright and shiny, but also stuff that holds up under scrutiny. Nugget after nugget, what separates these from your standard garage rock is that there’s more to it than bad attitude and a good riff. I bet it helps that the bassist, not the guitarist, is the main songwriter. Not only is everything solidly grounded, but the parts play into each other rather than just statically supporting a center of attention, whether that be voice or guitar. Grade: A-
La Pipa de la Paz (1996) – The apotheosis of their early sound. Like a great stew, the flavors interpenetrate each other making the whole something much more than the parts. Metal guitar tenses against rustic folk strains. Rhythms rock the Latin angularity. Echeverri leavens some big pop diva into her performing persona, while also striking at the intimacy of folk. Half the songs from 2004’s Ultimate Collection come from here, and that’s not a cheat. All but one of the remaining five tracks could have made the cut, too, without diminishing that compilation. A tour de force. (Roxy Music’s Phil Manzanera produced.) Grade: A
Caribe Atómico (1998) – Having mastered their style, they take a left turn. The illusion of a band is replaced by the reality of the duo who were at the heart of it, and Buitrago and Echeverri take their sound in new directions. Guitars and rock are downplayed in favor of electronics and pop. “El Desinflar de tu Cariño” rides Tito Puente’s “Oye Cómo Va” vamp. “Caribe Atómico” drifts in before giving way to a pulsing electronic beat. Buitrago’s bass moves more to the fore as dancier rhythms take over. (Check out his bass line on “Mañana”, which manages the neat trick of sounding like a sample from a jazz album even as he’s playing it himself.) It still sounds like an Aterciopelados album, and even if it isn’t quite as strong as its predecessor, it escapes diminishing marginal returns by doing something new and, sometimes, even improved. Grade: A-
Gozo Poderoso (2001) – For the first time, the forward momentum slows. Rather than extending or deepening ideas, they provide more of the same, but while that will become a problem, here they are still operating close enough to peak to get away with it. Despite the first half being loaded with key tracks such as the effervescent “Luz Azul” and the slinky title track, it’s the second half that sneaks up on you. Funky “La Misma Tijera”, anthemic “Chamanica”, kooky “A Su Salud”. In lesser hands they’d tip into filler. Here they sparkle. Grade: A-
Andrea Echeverri, Andrea Echeverri (2005) – Letting her inner folkie loose. On her solo debut, Echeverri lacks all the quirkiness that makes Aterciopelados so endearing. There are still some good tracks, especially the bluesy stuff, but they don’t cover up the bland. Grade: C+
Conector, Conector (2006) – With Echeverri on almost every track, the difference between this Buitrago solo move and an Aterciopelados album is hard to hear. Which is fine, of course! Buitrago heads back to guitar-focused music, albeit without the punky overtones of his early work. He pushes himself again, taking his songs into new places while still holding to what made them engaging in the first place. He goes more for a psychedelic feel with plenty of echo and swirly sound effects that add some depth not present on earlier music, and while Echeverri’s voice is prominent, guest appearances from Julieta Venegas, Fernada Takai and others give the music a different flavor. Grade: A-
Oye (2006) – Reuniting after a five-year break, Buitrago and Echeverri don’t miss a beat. Picking up where Gozo Poderoso left off, the innovations of the solo albums seem forgotten, which is a mixed blessing. While more focused and sharp than Echeverri’s solo album, the music isn’t as adventurous as Conector. Instead, the two decide to continue exploring the ideas first broached on Caribe Atómico. And that’s fine because you could add “Al Parque” or “Canción Protesta” or “Complemento” alongside their best tracks without hearing a difference in quality. You just wonder what they could do if they pushed themselves a bit more. Grade: B+
Río (2008) – Leads off with one of their best tracks ever and then falls back into the good-but-been-there-before of Oye. It’s impossible to fault the quality. The good stuff would survive a career-overview playlist. The less good is enjoyable enough filler. You keep thinking they could do more—that lead cut proves it—but it would be petty to complain that very good isn’t great. Grade: B+
Andrea Echeverri, Dos (2010) – A marked improvement over her solo debut, she’s still not as fun and weird as when she teams with Buitrago. But she doesn’t bland out, and that makes all the difference. Grade: B
Conector, Conector II (2011) – A proper solo effort. Echeverri only appears on one track. Buitrago makes use of autotune to bring something from his voice he couldn’t do alone, while still bringing collaborators who can sing high and soft. The electronics have never been more pronounced. He makes the most beautiful music of his career. His bass anchors the music in a way it doesn’t with Aterciopelados. Keyboards swoosh and swirl while guitars quietly pluck out repetitive patterns, and vocals gently wend around the rhythmic center. Hypnotic and psychedelic while being simple and direct. Gorgeous. Grade: A-
Andrea Echeverri, Ruiseñora (2012) – Finally she makes an album that capture the spirit of her band work. Fun. Smart. Catchy. But it also doesn’t sound like a carbon copy of her band. You recognize her voice and artistic feel immediately, but she’s using that base to make the folky record she’s always wanted to. Grade: B+
Conector and ClaraLuna, Niños Cristal (2014) – At first I thought the kiddie chorus was too much, then too gimmicky. Then I realized it was just cover for the front man who can’t really sing but still likes to write infectious tunes. And that he cares about future generations. Headphones bring out the squiggly delights in the music. Grade: B
Claroscura (2018) – The duo reunited in the mid-’10s as a touring unit, but this was their first studio recording in a decade. More tentative than one would like, it’s played straighter than their norm, so it doesn’t reach previous peaks, solo or together, but it also testifies to their ongoing vitality. Relying on their skillful fusion of Latin and North American traditions, they assemble 13 solid songs. In the end most of the album is little more than quality comfort food for fans, but please note that qualifier before comfort. And on the stuff that is more than that, they remind you why they are titans. Grade: B-
Tropiplop (2021) – The hesitation and conservatism of the reunion album is left behind. They sound more confident, more determined.to thrive and evolve rather than just coast. On that level, this album is a triumph. The day-glo electro-pop sounds like nothing they’ve done, but they also squeeze moments of their older style into the mix. So as different as this sounds from Con el Corazón en la Mano, it has the same sense of liberative, anarchic fun. If it’s not as exciting as their best work, how many bands make music this strong on their ninth album? Grade: B
Live, Dallas (2024) – Thirty years in, they aren’t the same band. Literally. Buitrago and Echeverri look old enough to be the parents of the kids backing them, and a band assembled to play new music updates old stuff to their own style, which was fine. Many songs had different arrangements that tweaked them without making them too strange and/or took advantage of the live context to stretch things out. Echeverri was a glorious ham. The stage banter—there was a fair amount of it—was all in Spanish, which was also fine because the crowd was clearly Spanish-speaking: Colombians and Venezuelans and Mexicans and others. Since I took German in high school (smart move for a Texan, right?), I barely understood a word, but when Echeverri was giving shoutouts to all Latin American countries, I think she made a joke about gringos. Hey, there were nearly dozen of us there! And we were lucky to be. What hadn’t struck me until that moment was that I was hearing in on someone else’s anthems. Language barrier meant Aterciopelados was niche in the extreme in the ’90s rock market, but for some people who spoke Spanish they could well have been Nirvana or Pavement. The crowd hung on every word. At least a half dozen times, the crowd sang along loudly, and sometimes Echeverri stepped back and let them take over. And while the band played some new ones (although, best I could tell, nothing from the Caribe Atómico to Rio period), they mostly focused on the oldies that were near and dear to the audience. They are on their North American tour right now. Catch them if you can.
Brazil Beat 