The sounds of Gotan Project are well travelled now: conceived in Paris, recorded in Argentina, echoing across dusty ballrooms from Hollywood to London to Tel Aviv. The formula is simple, but skilled; elements of traditional tango laid out over the top of throbbing dance-floor bass-lines. The smoky voice of an olive-skinned, high cheek-boned femme fatale, the lachrymose sweeping strings sounds, all moody nineteen fifties cinema tragedy.
There’s obvious skill of sound manipulation in the joining of various sounds here – acoustic accordions versus electronic skitter, high-drama piano versus a disco high-hat. There is a feeling that a whole album of this could become overly formulaic, just adding modern rhythms to tango sounds from the previous century. Still, 'Diferente' is different to most noises to be heard from club sound-systems in this country, and, until a resultant wave of tango copycat bands arise, this is most certainly an interesting musical crossover.
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7Rachel Cawley's Score