Today's blog takes us to Buenos Aires, Argentina for a wonderful blend of beautifully arranged and composed songs, mixing folk, pre-rock and indie-pop music. The band are called Julio & Agosto and they describe themselves as;
"a mini orchestra of songs in acoustic format, which constantly teeters between humor and melancholy."
That's a fairly accurate description. The, always playful and witty, songs have the slightly wonky folk feel of Beirut, each being strongly underpinned by a lugubrious double-bass. Over the top of this framework; trombone, trumpet, guitar, flute and violin are allowed to alternately gambol or totter as the mood dictates. This allows the band a rich, theatrical expression of sound that is, by turns, quirky, exuberant or wistful.
I'm sure those of you who have enjoyed previous Streetlamp recommendations, such as Mykonos Flame, Wild Honey or Les Chauds Lapins will love this band.
It's also worth mentioning at this point that the band produce a rather nice line in visual art, which I believe is self produced by the bassist Marcelo. The style is reminiscent to that of illustrator Axel Scheffler in my opinion.
The band's debut album is currently available as a free download on their bandcamp page and I'm embedding a couple of songs below to give you a flavour of the Julio & Agosto sound. However, I do implore that you check out the album as the band's range is so full that it was difficult to pick just two songs that adequately demonstrate their appeal.
The line-up for the recording was:
Santiago Adano: guitar, vocals and ukulele
Michael Canevari: guitar and vocals
Marcelo Canevari: bass
John Buonuome: Peruvian cajon
Luciana Cuneo: violin
Guido Gromadzyn: violin
Leandro Aspis: trombone and vocals
The recording also features:
Pisano Diego: Trumpet
Anaclara Frosio: flute
The band can also be found on soundcloud, facebook and reverbnation.
Griff
xx
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