Our latest podcast, featuring Chango Spasiuk!

A new podcast, featuring the accordion magic and deep swing of Argentinian chamamé star, Chango Spasiuk. Presented by Colin Bass.

On chamamé, diversity and mate tea: Q & A with Chango Spasiuk

Q – At home in Argentina, you are considered the new hero of chamamé, the music ‘with the deepest swing in Argentina’. What exactly is chamamé?

A:

I am just one of the representatives of the new generation of this tradition, one of many, perhaps the one that has travelled the furthest abroad playing this genre of music. Chamamé is the folk music that is widely representative of the whole of the northeast of Argentina. It is a world of sound where many elements come together, from the encounter of Jesuit monks with indigenous Guaraní people, the mestizo population, some elements from the African world too from slaves who came to Argentina via Peru, and finally European immigrants, who brought with them the accordion, an instrument that has travelled to so many places in the world. From the coming together of these different strands of influences has emerged a tradition and a sound that we today call ‘chamamé’. Traditionally it was played with accordion and guitar, later more instruments were added, like the violin, vocals, often as duet singing, and not to forget that it is a dance music. Today many many ways of playing it exist, both in its instrumental and its vocal forms.

Q – You have become famous in Argentina as the presenter of a TV program that explores rural musical traditions – is there a need for roots music in Argentina?

A:

It’s been 30 years since I have been playing music, and only 8 years that I do this TV programme called Pequenos Universos (Small Universes). It can be seen on the web on the website of ‘Canal Encuentro’. In these 8 years I made more than 70 journeys for the programme, that is to say more than 70 documentary episodes, in all of which the idea is to show the oral transmission of uninterrupted traditions. At first we criss-crossed Argentina from top to bottom, and then also travelled through neighbouring countries, like Paraguy, Uruguay, Bolivia and Chile.

When talking about roots, the truth is that our roots are constantly present, they have never disappeared. What the programme tries to show, is that there is a lot more roots music in this country than we think, there is a lot more diversity than we think, and all these diverse music styles are a lot more complex than we think, too. The programme is simply trying to show off all this richness, all these treasures right there in front of us. In many places of the world diversity is now a problem, as we can see in today’s media, there are walls going up in many places, all caused by deep ignorance of the value of diversity. Our programme tries to look at diversity not as a problem but as a treasure. So the programme is not looking at whether there is a need for it or not, but it’s simply to show the great diversity we have in our culture.

It may be that it’s the music without roots that takes up the most space in today’s media and sounds mostly out of our radios, but still, music with roots connected to our culture is still very present in the everyday of our lives. In album releases, in local fiestas and many daily activities – roots music is not a museum piece but very alive and still very present in our lives.

Q – Most people associate Argentina with the tango and the bandoneon (or squeeze box), and you have a different tradition and instrument – can you describe this to your UK audience?

A:

That’s a very interesting question. The world associates tango with Argentina because it’s the most international music to come out of the country. It was connected to the golden era of Argentine cinema, and these films were very widely watched all over the world, and their sound came very much from the culture of tango. But the bandoneon is not an instrument that has only been involved in tango, it also plays an important role in chamamé and in many other folk traditions all over Argentina. Some big bandoneon personalities come from the tango, but there are also many in chamamé, like Cocomarola, Abitbol, Riera, Flores… all of them great bandoneon players. In the music of the north of Argentina, the region of Salta, the bandoneon is also a key instrument, there are some well known and proud figures of this music, like Dino Saluzzi. So there are lots of connections between bandoneon and tango, but the instrument itself really is key in the development of many other folk traditions around the country.

Both the bandoneon and the accordion are used in chamamé – they are similar instruments, although the accordion has a broader palette of sound colours. Chamamé is a rural music, the music of farmers and labourers, of people who work with livestock, of people who dance. These rural landscapes are regions of subtropical climate and big rivers with their own complex cultural mix where the various elements mentioned earlier come together.

On the other hand, tango is an urban tradition, from the city of Buenos Aires, a big harbour city, and although the bandoneon has been a key instrument, the elements that come together are totally different and the historical and their geographical context is totally different too. Also, chamamé and most of our folk traditions are based on a rhythm of 6/8 or3/4, while tango is binary, with a rhythm of 2/4 or 4/4.

Q – You are of Ukrainian heritage. How has this informed your music?

A:

The province of Misiones received large numbers of European immigrants in the late 19th and early 20th centuries - Ukrainians, Polish, Germans, Volga-Germans, Russians, Swedish… Among all these families arrived my grandparents, the parents of my mother and the parents of my father, and they settled in the town of Apóstoles, which is where I was born. So in addition to all the influences that already existed before the immigrants arrived (Guaraní, Criollo, and influences from over the border with Paraguay and Southern Brazil) now appeared these new colours to add themselves to the existing palette. The rhythm of chamamé was predominant  in this area, but now suddenly other rhythms appeared, like rural polkas, shottish, waltzes. So at one point all these new elements got added to an existing world of sound, and this is also what happens with my music. My music contains all these elements existing alongside each other, in a very spontaneous, natural way, without any kind of conflict. There is no sense that one influence is more important or better than another – where I was born all these influences were simply around me.

There were the more local, criollo roots of early chamamé, and there were the traditions that the immigrants brought with them, which over the next 100 years took on their own distinct local colour. This particular Ukrainian music now sounds totally different and has a totally different aesthetic than any other Ukrainian music, wherever you might find it in the world. You won’t find this sound in other places where Ukrainian immigrants settled, not in Canada, nor in Brazil or the USA. The fusion that took place in Misiones is totally unique to that place, and this is reflected in my music.

There are other elements too that are connected to the Ukrainian culture but have not necessarily something to do with music or aesthetics, for example a sense of hope, flexibility, a capacity to adapt… these are all things are reflected in a very subtle manner in my music too. I think the most important being a sense of hope, and also celebration… celebration in a sense not to be confused with the spectacle of a performance or a party.

Q – Where is your home town and how does it influence your music?

A:

I was born in Apóstoles, in Misiones, a wedge of land between Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay. It is a very intense land of red earth and dense jungle. Well, there is much less jungle there now than there was before, but it’s a subtropical place, with many mountains, trees and big rivers, rivers that are red coloured from the red earth they carry, the river Parana flowing towards the river Urugyay which again flows towards the south of Brazil. It’s a region of a many different cultures superimposed on each other, which have shaped a new, unique culture: the Mbuya-Guaraní, the Criollos, the Uruguayans, the Brazilians, and obviously the immigrants from Europe that started arriving at the end of the 19^th century. That’s where I come from. A place where in summer, during the months of January and February, the temperature rises to more than 45 degrees… it’s a very intense place because of all these elements, and many more.

It is where yerba mate grows, and many years back I made an album called ‘Tareferos de mis Pagos’, an album dedicated to the mate harvest and its labourers. Mate is a herb that is drunk as an infusion by everybody in Argentina, across all ages, children, adults and old people, and across all social classes too, but it only grows in this one region of Argentina, and a part of Uruguay. It’s almost a mythical plant, used by the Guaraní, then adopted by the Jesuits, and today it’s very well known and used all over Argentina and in neighbouring countries too, but it only grows in this one region where I come from.

Q – Are there any musicians from around the world you would like to collaborate with, and why?

A:

I’d like to collaborate with lots of them! With electronic music artists, with pianists, with orchestras, with string quartets, with accordion players… My interest lies in both exploring ways and tools for building bridges of connection between worlds you thought there could not be a connection with, as well as further exploring my own tradition of the music from where I come from.

I would not want to name one specific musician I would like to work with, but simply build relationships with others where we can throw ideas at each other, challenge each other and move something forward. I am always very open, thinking, researching and studying other musical worlds in order to discover where the bridges might lie. And surely at some point possibilities and crossings will appear, though at the moment I am in a phase where I have still a lot to do  and to show that comes from my own background and my own music – at some later point I’m sure I will come to focus more on the crossroads that may appear on the path. I sometimes think about an album with lots of international guests where we could work on these ideas, say flamenco or a jazz musicians, wind or string ensembles, percussion, electronics… all in one single album. Just another idea that goes around in my head and hopefully one day there will be the time, and the funding to take such a project forward. In the meantime I keep doing what is realistically possible.

Q – Can you introduce us to the musicians of your ensemble?

A:

The trio on this tour is made up of Pablo Farhat, who comes from the province of Santiago del Estero, which is a very traditional province, and he is a very versatile violinist fluent in both the studied, academic side of music, and at the same time he has a great knowledge of the oral traditions of roots music of Argentina, and he can very well combine these two worlds, these two disciplines, the one of oral transmission of roots music and the academic, written down aspect of music. He has a great skill in improvising and in immersing himself into the sound world of my music - he is a really great violinist and I’m really happy to be able to do this tour with him.

The other musician in the trio is Marcos Villalba, a percussionist and guitarist with whom I have been working for a very long time. He comes from a family of musicians, and I have also worked with his brothers Gabriel and Sebastian (who has sung on most of my records, and has been on many international tours before.) Marcos is his younger brother and he is a very very talented percussionist, and we have been working together for a many years - he has a great power and drive. I think he is one of the best cajoneros in the world – cajon is an instrument from Peru, that is also used in flamenco and many other traditions, a widely used instrument nowadays –  and he is for me one of the very best players in the world. He also plays the guitar and sometimes sings as well.

I think this trio format really is very powerful and it’s going to sound great on this tour.

Q – What’s next for Chango Spasiuk?

A: 

‘Pynandí’ was my last international album, but since then I have released two more albums in Argentina: one recorded live in the Teatro Colon, called ‘Tierra Colorada en el Teatro Colon’, which is the most famous theatre in Argentina, for opera and classical music. We recorded a live album and DVD there, which hasn’t been released internationally yet. And only a couple of months ago another album was released in Argentina featuring a less well known side of my work, which is as composer of film music. Over the past 15 years I have worked on many Argentine film productions, with many different directors, so this album features my work for cinema, for documentaries, short films and TV. It’s an album with 16 tracks showing off this creative side of me – there is a lot of piano as I have worked with many pianists in this context, and there are many different musical textures -  it’s called ‘Otras Musicas’. It’s only been released in Argentina although I am looking at the possibility of an online release for the rest of the world - although there might not be a physical release people elsewhere in the world can download the album and listen to it. Back in Argentina I am working on promoting this film music album at the moment, and thinking about a new studio album for the next year that would once again have more of an international reach. The tour is not going to focus on any particular album though - it will present a broad range of my compositions and my way of interpreting the tradition of chamamé. 

Sending greetings and hugs to everyone and looking very much forward to coming to visit you soon!

On tour next: Chango Spasiuk!

At home in Argentina, Chango Spasiuk is considered the new hero of chamamé, the music ‘with the deepest swing in Argentina’; a warm-hearted, accordion-based style that taps into native Guarani, Spanish, Criollo and Eastern European roots. Its natural home is the red lands and lush jungles of north-east Argentina, where Spasiuk was born to a family of Ukrainian immigrants. A fiery and sensitive virtuoso on his accordion, he brings rare charisma to his live performances: his rapt, dervish-like stage presence and his extraordinary ensemble make for music of profound beauty and feeling, infusing melancholy with resilient optimism. Winner of a BBC World Music Award and nominated for a Latin Grammy, Spasiuk makes a long awaited return to Britain with this autumn tour – not to be missed