Thursday, October 15, 2009
Music news Los Amigos Invisibles reach new heights at the Loft on Sat. (Oct. 17)
Posted by Alejandro A. Leal on Thu, Oct 15, 2009 at 1:00 PM
For those of you that have been to a Los Amigos Invisibles concert, you will know that there is little room to chitchat. “It was sort of a running joke,” Jose Luis Pardo, the band’s lead guitarist tells me over the phone. “We play continuously, so that people wouldn’t talk in between songs. Now it became a trademark of the band.”
And as such, the six guys that make up this Venezuelan-born, New York-based Latin/dance band have mastered the ability to keep the crowd moving by varying the pace according to the energy and feedback in the room.
They can start by playing a set of up-tempo dance tracks, then transitioning to a more paced interlude of salsa songs, and end with a half-dozen of the signature funk numbers the band has come to be known for. Or they can do it the other way around.
The band’s style on stage certainly draws from the way their studio albums are produced and edited, and without necessarily characterizing either as the inspiration of the other this trademark aesthetic is something the band cherishes. “We like the fact that our records sound like a DJ set,” says Pardo. “Ever record tells a story from beginning to end.”
Each album also features a particular theme that dictates the flow of the music. Their latest studio album, Comercial, was a transparent effort to produce music that would reach the broadest possible audience by playing up the pop elements, keeping the track-lengths short, but also weaving “commercial” breaks in between songs.
The thing is, you can’t call them sellouts; Comercial was released on their own label and is being distributed by Nacional Records, one of the bigger names in the independent, non-traditional Latino music market.
With that said, there’s no doubt that one of the goals for the album was to make it as commercially successful as possible. After all, that’s how the band has been able to sustain itself independently for the past five or so years. “We wanted to make a more approachable record so that we could draw bigger crowds,” says Pardo.
Rest assured, Comercial does fit within the band’s distinctive approach to their music, and in fact, the guys are venturing into new territory, reaching out to their Spanish-impaired audience members by recording an English-language track for the first time.
“When we first moved to New York, we didn’t feel comfortable composing in English, but that’s changed, we live half of our lives speaking English now,” says Pardo, and the incentive has been the fact that, much like their influences, they draw a very diverse crowd.
The band’s main objective is ultimately about people having a good time at their shows, as Pardo says, “making people dance from beginning to end.”
» Download "Viviré para tí" featuring Natalia Lafourcade, from Comercial - Download
Los Amigos Invisibles with Satellite District. $17.50. 9:30 p.m. Sat. Oct. 17. The Loft. 1374 West Peachtree St. . 404-885-1365. www.ticketalternative.com.
(Photo by Fran Beaufrand)
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