ANTIGUO AUTOMATA MEXICANO: TURNING THE MAINSTREAM INTO THE MARGINS

http://b2magazine.wordpress.com/tag/antiguo-automata-mexicano/

B2 Magazine, Berlin

ANTIGUO AUTOMATA MEXICANO: TURNING THE MAINSTREAM INTO THE MARGINS

The Tijuana label Static Discos is know among music fans worldwide for its small but solid selection of experimental electronic acts, which are often better known in Europe than within the boundaries of Latin America. One such project is Antiguo Automata Mexicano—originally a single-man operation founded in the northern city of Monterrey by Ángel Sánchez Borges, which now includes drummer Carlos Icaza on its heavily improvised live sets.

Ángel began to work on AAM in 2000 as a side-project to his electro rock group Slowmotionlove. He wanted to give the ideas on noise and improvisation developed while he was cello student in the mid 1980s a digital outlet, which made it easier for him to develop new soundscapes. “I composed Microhate an album full of crackle soundscapes with a melancholic evening mood”. Angel dedicated the first track to Florian Fricke the front man of the band Popol Vuh, one of the most important projects associated with the Krautrock, the German avant-garde musical movement that emerged at the end of the 1960’s.

Not only was Microhate influenced by German experimental music, it was also released through Background Records in Düsseldorf, Germany home to groups such as Neu! and Kraftwerk. According to Ángel, being associated to minimalist and avant-garde German music can be both good and bad, but has never been a gimmick. “I always dedicate some pieces of my work to musical heroes of mine”, says Ángel , “for example, to Walter Schmidt, in my opinion one of greatest electronic and experimental musicians ever to have come from México.”

A project such as AAM is rare for Monterrey, an industrial culturally and politically conservative city best known in Mexican music circles for norteña music and the “avanzada regia”—a movement that included hip-hop, rock, and electronic bands once considered commercially viable by MTV and the record industry. AAM has had little relation to this phenomenon. In fact, the music of Antiguo Automata Mexicano with its abstract and challenging disposition stands in rather sharp contrast to most music from Monterrey. I ask Angel about his relation to his native city and whether he has found support for his music? “I do believe that my music could only emerge from Monterrey”, says Ángel, “I don’t know why, but perhaps just being bored in the middle of this infernally hot place!”

AAM has certainly achieved an important level of attention among adventurous musicfans. With his latest project—Kraut Slut—in which Ángel has further developed the intensity and intricateness of his sound, AAM has generated considerable attention from publications such as Fader, Urb, Pitchfork and Texture. Unfortunately, such level of international attention remains elusive for the majority of Mexican experimental projects. When I asked Ángel how he has been able to put AAM on the global musical spectrum, he replied, “I think AAM has gained such recognition because of all the work I’ve been doing in Mexico since the 1980s. In Monterrey and Mexico City people started paying attention to my music because the “German album” (Microhate) and a review by the electronic music publication De:Bug”.

Read the complete article from Oscar León Bernal in B2 MAGAZINE BERLIN #9, BLACK BOX BERLIN

http://www.themilkfactory.co.uk/st/2007/05/antiguo-automata-mexicano-kraut-slut-static-discos/

ANTIGUO AUTOMATA MEXICANO: Kraut Slut (Static Discos)

By themilkman

ANTIGUO AUTOMATA MEXICANO

Kraut Slut

Static Discos

Hailing from Monterrey in North-East Mexico, Angel Sánchez Borges has been an active member of the underground Mexican scene for over fifteen years, releasing music under a variety of guises, but he only emerged on the international scene a couple of years ago when he released his first album as Antiguo Autómata Mexicano, Microhate, on Düsseldorf-based imprint Background Records. With his latest, song-based, project, Seekers Who Are Lovers, Sánchez revisits the work of The Velvet Underground and Will Oldham.

With this first release for Tijuana’s Static Discos, original home of Murcof and Fax, Sánchez returns to the refined minimal techno of AAM. WithMicrohate, Sánchez explored a series of organic spaces built around minimal grooves, intricate sound formations and vast ambient soundscapes. Kraut Slut continues on a similar path, but here Sánchez relies on slightly more straightforward track structure, driving beats and clean-cut atmospheric soundscapes, reminiscent of Mille Plateaux or Komplott, yet he retains some of the abstract angles of his debut.

Album opener Rother, Dinger, You And Me and Mille which follows, set the tone. While the former evolves imperceptibly from a linear beat and rarefied electronics into a more elaborate piece of techno, the latter is a much richer slice of progressive dance music, which, after a rather introvert intro, slowly gathers pace as Sánchez applies more layers.Reflect Ella, All Styl and Co Opt follow similar paths, each track progressively developing from just a handful of components into crystalline formations. On Malandre De Culto, Sánchez drops a subtle melody over a soft aquatic groove, while, on the sombre Extirpe and twisted dub of Ham & Jazz, he toys with much more introspective ambient soundscapes, echoing the vast textural accents of Microhate. The album concludes with remixes of Mille (Kampion) and Co-Opt (J. A. Berricochea). While Kampion offers quite a radical rereading of the original, slowing it down drastically and softening its edges, Berricochea exposes the atmospheric hues of Sánchez’s version and deploys them as sumptuous electronic drapes.

While it may be regrettable that Sánchez hasn’t explored further the raw organic ambient and cinematic soundscapes that characterised his first album, his take on minimal techno proves very enjoyable and masterful. His beats are sharp, his grooves relentless and his sounds clean cut, with delicate melodies flourishing unexpectedly, making Kraut Slut an effortlessly classy piece of work.