The Gotan Project - 'Santa Maria' (XL)
3/5
By: Thomas Hannan
While 'Projects' almost always yield something unusual, often they suffer from a feeling of a need to innovate unnecessarily or a strange 'must have this handed in by Monday' mentality. Instead, what makes the Gotan Project so charming is you get the impression that they conjure up gems such as 'Santa Maria' for all the right reasons, not really caring about people's perception of their work at all. They also know that those who latch on are the lucky ones. Although the strange, broad French funk at play will probably bemuse more people than it excites, it's such a welcome change from anything on any scene presently that the sheer shock of its existence is enough to cause much worthy interest.
Fittingly, 'interest' is something that the three 'Argentinian musicians exiled in Paris', namely Philippe Cohen Solal, Eduardo Makaroff and Christoph H Muller have been gathering a lot of recently, thanks mostly to their well-received debut album 'La Revancha Del Tango'. All of the tracks across the formats of this release feature in their original incarnations on said album - and a perplexing bunch they are.
Lead-track 'Santa Maria' is an infinitely listenable mix of slow funk and tango, but hardly features anything remotely catchy, making it a strange choice for a single. It matters little though, because although the lack of something instantly memorable may damage a lesser composition, 'Santa Maria' comes out unscathed, its slow groove and soft lyrics confessedly hard to get bowled over by, but its overall being somehow still remaining oddly compelling.
It's something that can also be said of the other compositions, 'Epoca' forming a perfect partner to the main title, whilst the Kushite remix of 'El Capitalismo Foraneo' is the only effort that bears any resemblance to other acts, that being Leftfield's work with Afrika Bambaata... All in all, a mysterious affair certainly not to feature to everybody's taste, but one definitely deserving of further investigation.
Yup - it's something difficult to pin down, but whatever magic it is that the Gotan Project have got hold of, it's a strangely addictive potion.
Artists in this article: The Gotan Project
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