Album: Federico Aubele

Gran Hotel Buenos Aires, EIGHTEENTH STREET LOUNGE

Although it was The Beatles that first drew the young Federico Aubele to music, the greatest influence on his own music came when he encountered the avant-garde tango creations of his fellow Argentinian, Astor Piazzolla. "Piazzolla sounded like Argentina and, more specifically, Buenos Aires," he explains. "It's like Sinatra and New York, Piazzolla and Buenos Aires - it's the perfect soundtrack for the city." After developing a career as a musical all-rounder - composer, guitarist, arranger, DJ - Aubele elected to update the sound of his home city, using samples overlaid with his own acoustic guitar lines. The final piece of his musical jigsaw came when he contacted Washington DC soundscaper duo The Thievery Corporation, who were so impressed with Federico's demos they signed him to their label and offered to produce his album. The result is Gran Hotel Buenos Aires, an intriguing collection of pieces that blend his native samba, tango and cumbia rhythms with The Thievery Corporation's house, funk and reggae beats, to produce an engaging series of latino-dub-house grooves on which Aubele's guitar flourishes and melodica contrails are subjected to plenty of echo, vibrato and other effects, and fronted by various female vocalists singing in Spanish.