It’s been a long, strange trip for Gustavo Cerati. The guitarist and vocalist, who turned fifty yesterday, started out as the front man for the ridiculously popular¹ Argentine band Soda Stereo. In 1993, while Soda Stereo was still active, he released his first solo effort, Amor Amarillo, which contained elements that would be blended–in various proportions–ever since; cryptic lyrics², gentle ambience, hot shit guitar playing, and radio-friendly songcraft played off against a slightly skewed sonic and melodic sensibility.
In 1999, scarcely two years after Soda Stereo broke up, Cerati released Bocanada, which sounded like a continuation of the more ambient bits of Soda’s last studio disc, Sueño Stereo. As albums go, it’s a staid, downtempo affair that manages to sound like the better bits of the Cure in places (only Cerati is a better vocalist and guitarist than Robert Smith, and doesn’t have Smith’s dry white whine). When it was followed, a few years later, by Siempre es Hoy, some fans (present company included) enjoyed the techno shadings and electronic squiggles while others wondered where in the hell the guitar had gone, and whether Cerati had lost the plot.³
And then, with Ahi Vamos, Cerati found the guitar, and the plot, again. Tracks like “Dios nos Libre” and “Bomba de Tiempo” were mostly-unadulterated straightforward rock, suggesting that the musician had come to a kind of uneasy peace with the Soda Stereo days, and marking a return to form. Which brings us–in typically roundabout fashion–to the upcoming Fuerza Natural.
According to his website, the latest disc is due to drop on September 1. One track from the collection, “Déjà Vu,” is up for your listening pleasure on Cerati.com. I don’t like to guess at what an entire album’s going to sound like on the basis of one track, but as sneak previews go, this one’s pretty promising. Like Ahi Vamos, it would seem to be a more straightforward rock effort, with less of the electronic/atmospheric touches that characterized its predecessors. At any rate, we’ll have a better idea in a few weeks when the full disc is released. Stay tuned…
¹Well, in Rock en Español circles, anyway. You’ll just have to take my word for it.
²And I don’t just mean “cryptic” because I don’t speak Spanish; once I deciphered them, they still, often as not, had this quasi-mystical thing about them.
³I’m actually truncating the hell out of the discography; among all the rest of this are collaborations with Daniel Melero, Plan V, Roken, and Ocio, plus songwriting and playing with Shakira and others, a remix disc, a greatest hits, and an album consisting of orchestral versions of solo and Soda Stereo stuff. I’m limiting myself to the “proper” solo releases. You’re welcome.