Traveling: Chile

There's a place in South America that appears to be far. Farer than every other place in the american continent. Maybe because is just a long and thin strip of mountains that isolate the people that live on the coast. Maybe for its troubled and hard history. I don't know why, but since I was a little girl there was something about Chile that made me imagine that land like a bubble somewhere nowhere. There were these people, artists, musicians, writers, sparse all around the world talking about their lost homeland and telling magical tales in a way that made me sure that this was supposed to be a special land.
Here I found some music from that far place. And still it talks to me in the same way. One day I'll see it with my eyes and I'll know a little more how far it is.


This album is the soundtrack of a movie titled "Mejor no fumes" (You'd better not smoke). It includes a very wide range of styles and genres and collaborations of different artists. The result is a poetical travel in the modern chilean pop music, with accents of rock and songs with beautiful lyrics and open atmospheres.


And this one is a weird mix between pachanga, cumbia and ska and rock and... almost everything. It's funny, danceable, interesting and fresh. Makes me think of a long travel by train. Don't know exactly why.


Another perspective on Chile. This album takes inspiration by the rainforest, the autochthonous populations of ancient south America and their traditions and rituals. I must confess that I've been first attracted by the cover and the title. Pacarina, in fact, were the places where the first inhabitants of Peru and Andes were supposed to come from, sacred places like caves or lakes. And before being humans those people were elements of nature, of the underworld... well isn't this fascinating?


When I listened to this album the first thing I thought were Manà. Then I kept listening and was captured. I like this album a lot. It's a little rough, there's a lot of rock and blues, but it's totally "latino" in its best declination. I can't get tired by the lyrics and I totally love Balcones y taxis.

Bonus Track

This is an original project that I wanted to inlcude in this post. An experiment of "painting" portraits by music. I think that mission was accomplished.