Correo Aereo
Lo Que Me Dijo el Viento
Orchard
You know that scene in the movie where Kevin Spacey is an anti-death-penalty dude on death row? You know the one, where there’s all that really intense Latin percussion and strummy guitar that goes “Laira la la, la la la”? Well, neither do I, I never saw that movie. But apparently that was Correo Aereo’s song “Cuatrapeado,” which I have experienced, and it’s beautiful and propulsive and seductive, as this whole compact disc (which came out back in 2001 but now that the movie’s out the publicity company is getting it out there again) proves to be.
Correo Aereo is pretty much two people: Abel Rocha is the sexy male guitar- and harp-playing singer, and Madeleine Sosin is the sexy woman violin- and percussion-playing singer. They also have a sexy bass player named Rosie Ochoa on most of these tracks – must have been quite a hubba-hubba lineup back when this first came out! But the music itself is very sensuous, most of the songs being adaptations of folksongs from various Spanish-speaking nations, done as world-folk. Rocha puts as much effort into traditional songs like Venezuela’s son-like “Golpes Tocuyanos” as he does into his own song “De Mis Memorias,” and just generally sounds like a studly dude with great chops. And Sosin’s violin work (check the beginning of “La Mariquita”!) is just as impressive as her singing.
I like how Correo Aereo is able to absorb all the different influences of all this music and re-make it as something unusual, cool and vital. There’s a lot of tense interplay between guitar and violin on tracks like “La Rosa,” but (sadly) that doesn’t happen often enough on Lo Que Me Dijo el Viento. It’s a little too “respectable” sometimes, a bit too calculated; but even the songs that do that are too beautiful to hate, so you end up loving them.
What I don’t like about Correo Aereo is the fact that they haven’t put out an album since this. Come on, dudez: get with the program and start cluttering up the soundscape with more wonderful hot worldly records like this. It’s for our own good!
Correo Aereo: http://www.correoaereo.com/
