This came out in 1999 – or at least that’s when I got it. Here’s what I said about it back then (with some minor editing):
If you’re looking for The Gipsy Kings, you’ve come to the wrong place.
Not that Mexico City’s Café Tacuba don’t know how to pluck a pretty fine flamenco guitar. It’s just that this band of mutant mariachis are probably about as familiar with a Mexican classic like Volver as they are with a modern classic like The Beatles’ Revolver.
Café Tacuba, you see, are the leading proponents of what has come to be known as Rock en Español, the wave of hispanic and Latino alternative acts that are slowly making inroads into Anglo North America. Like their fellow countrymen Molotov, who won a Grammy for their debut rap-metal disc ¿Donde Jungaran Las Niñas? (Where Will The Little Girls Play?). Or South America’s long-running Los Fabulosos Cadillacs, whose Latino ska-punk has also earned them Grammy nods. Or rappers Todos Tus Muertos. Or Maldita Vecindad, El Tri, Tijuana No! … the list goes on and on.
But right now, Café Tacuba are at the top of it. Their last album, 1996’s acclaimed Avalancha De Exitos (Avalanche Of Hits), was arguably Rock en Español’s first breakthrough disc, earning its crossover appeal thanks to a bizarre, intriguing fusion of traditional Mexican melodies with avant-pop eclecticism. But if Tacuba helped define a genre with Exitos, their fourth album — the two-CD set Revés / Yo Soy (Backwards / I Am), their first Canadian release — seems designed to redefine not only Rock en Español but also their place in it.
The first disc, the 47-minute Revés, is all-instrumental, a soundtrack to a film only they can picture. True to form, it once again relies on the juxtaposition of traditional instrumentation (acoustic guitar flourishes, simple classic melodies) and cutting-edge technology (drum ’n’ bass loops, samples, edgy noise rock). In a strangely fitting touch, its tracks are titled only with (apparently) random numbers, thwarting any attempts to read meanings into their names.
Not that the titled tracks on the 50-minute alterna-pop disc Yo Soy provide you with much insight (although, to be fair, in my case this is mainly due to my pathetic bar-level Spanish — the only Tacuba song I could really understand would be one called Cerveza, Por Favor). But it doesn’t matter if you can’t speak the lingo; the band’s delicious guac-rock says it all. Spontaneously veering from a gentle, flowing bolero ballad to an experimental electronic art-rocker to a sneering punk riff and back with all the restraint of Tijuana at rush hour, Café Tacuba continue to be a band that can be many things — energetic, artistic, even downright freaky — but predictable ain’t one of ’em.
Heck, every now and then, they even pluck a pretty fine flamenco guitar.
