This fateful 2020 only deepened a phenomenon that has been going on for a long time: a large part of our cultural consumption – informational, literary, audiovisual, musical – occurs through the internet.
Subscription audiovisual streaming platforms such as Netflix or Spotify have become the new giants of global entertainment and a large part of the planet’s population is connected to them.
Urugay is not the exception. Most of the music produced in the country is consumed through Spotify and YouTube, and for quite some time now, a large part of local music releases has often been done exclusively in virtual form, ignoring physical media.
This new (virtual) reality brings good and bad things with it, as it always does.
On the half-full glass side, you’ve never heard so much music (and surely you’ve never seen so much cinema) as in this time. And although the flow of information continues to be asymmetrical, the opportunities for the artistic production of a marginal and peripheral country like Uruguay to be known abroad have increased considerably. Something that in terms of Uruguayan music has been clearly palpable for at least a decade. There is a growing interest, within an international specialized public, in the work of various Uruguayan artists.
Record companies today have a lot of capital in their catalogs more than ever. For Uruguayan stamps, the task of maintaining, publishing and distributing this heritage is not easy. Without official support and always starting from an almost non-existent local market, the possibility of diffusion through virtual platforms could seem an attractive business. However, the miserable economic rewards of the platforms –especially those of the most popular ones- make a “niche” music, such as most of the Uruguayan production, more an act of cultural militancy than an economic bet. This reality is even worse for musicians and authors themselves in terms of royalties and copyrights. That’s one of the bad (very bad) sides of virtual music distribution.
In any case, for approximately five years the three Uruguayan historical stamps Orfeo (now owned by Bizarro), Sondor and Ayuí have been slowly uploading part of their extensive online historical catalog.
The pioneer Sondor (the first Uruguayan label, founded in 1938) was also pioneering in terms of streaming. Its enormous catalog, which also includes material from the fundamental and missing labels of La Planta, Clave and Macondo, is largely available on streaming platforms.
Bizarro-Orfeo and Ayuí, took advantage of the general stoppage of 2020 to catch up with their archive, uploading some historical records that in many cases had not had any kind of reissue since their distant releases. To a lesser extent, other labels such as Montevideo Music Group or the multinational Universal collaborated with some important albums.
In 2020, fundamental albums by Uruguayan artists of all genres and from very diverse periods (with an emphasis on the productive 1980s) were recovered through streaming. Key and unattainable albums were uploaded in physical format by Jorge Galemire, Eduardo Darnauchans, Fernando Cabrera and José Carbajal. We were able to appreciate the complete discographies of Los que were cantando and Rumbo. We discover forgotten works, but enormously influential, such as the first album by Pájaro Canzani or the album by Ruben Rada with the group SOS. Or rarities only known to specialists such as Hugo Jasa’s instrumental album Moods or the album that the members of Opa made in Argentina in 1981 in homage to the Shakers. He also completed the 1980s trilogy of Los Traidores and reissued his precious acoustic album from the late 1990s. The appreciation of Jaime Roos’ complete work was expanded with the albums of Repique y la Escuelita, his bands from the 80s and early. from the 90s. We also revalued great albums by Estela Magnone and Las Tres. We had the chance to re-enjoy Claudio Taddei’s first solo album and more current albums, but already with the aroma of classics like the first albums by Supervielle and Santullo.
Most of these virtual reissues were also made with love and dedication, especially in the case of Bizarro and Ayuí. Regarding sound, there were careful remastering (in the case of Bizarro by César Lamschtein, in Ayuí by Diego Azar) designed especially for streaming. In the graphic part, an attempt was made to respect in general – within the narrow limits imposed by the platforms – the original designs of the covers. There were some errors in the release dates of the discs and no label made use of the new possibilities to add credits and more complete technical sheets through the metadata (an information that is very restricted in the case of Spotify, but can be very comprehensive on other sites like Tidal for example). But these are easily reversible errors and omissions.
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The fundamental thing is that we were able to enjoy (here and in the rest of the world) mythical albums that many knew only by name or thanks to the selfless contribution of fans who had copied their original vinyl or cassettes to sites like YouTube, recovering part of our cultural heritage
There is still a lot of material to rescue and it would be wonderful if that work was also in physical format (luckily some of that is being done, with some reissues on vinyl). But this terrible 2020 gave us back part of our soundtrack, albeit in virtual form. For the current state of affairs it is no small thing.
Zitarrosa: presences and absences
This year, the Zitarrosa Foundation uploaded a series of nine volumes entitled The unpublished files of Alfredo Zitarrosa. Creation inside. It is an impressive material that includes rehearsal recordings, live performances, unpublished songs, the artist’s interpretations of several classic tangos, the author’s words about his songs, reports and a long etcetera. This deep immersion in the Zitaroran world contrasts with the absence in the digital universe of several of his fundamental albums. There are inexplicably missing albums from the golden age of one of our greatest singers and composers such as Zitarrosa 4 (1969), Milonga mother (1970), Adagio in my country (1973) and Zitarrosa 74 (1974).
Something similar happens with the discography of Los Olimareños and that of José Carbajal “El Sabalero”, two of the most important and popular artists in Uruguay. In both cases fundamental records of their careers are missing. For its part, the record work of several of the pioneering names of Uruguayan folklore such as Amalia de la Vega, Aníbal Sampayo, Anselmo Grau or Osiris Rodríguez Castillos is also very underrepresented on streaming sites.
The Galemire year
Jorge Galemire was a fundamental actor in Uruguayan popular music. He had a very important role in some key albums by colleagues such as Jaime Roos, Eduardo Darnauchans, Dino or Fernando Cabrera, he was part of foundational projects such as Los que Iban Cantando and marked the music of several generations of artists with his solo work. However his name is not so familiar to the public. Among other things because his scarce, but very influential, discography was almost impossible to obtain. In particular his first two albums Presentation (Ayuí, 1981) and Seconds out (Orfeo, 1983) always named as inescapable pieces of Uruguayan music. Presentation it had been reissued on CD in 1999, as part of the 30 years of Uruguayan music collection launched by Posdata magazine, but it was currently unattainable. The mythical Seconds out, one of the most elaborate albums of the ’80s, combining candombe beat, psychedelia, and songwriting had never been reissued since its original release on vinyl and cassette in 1983. This year, we finally got access to those two gems and also the never reissued Railways (Orfeo, 1987), the artist’s rock and pop bet and a great influence for the 90s generation. The three albums also have a very careful and respectful remastering of the original sound that increases the pleasure of (re) discovery. There is an error that, curiously, the Ayuí label has been repeating in several of its releases: The album Presentation It appears as published in 1999, being actually from 1981. A minor error could be said, but it is very different to listen to the careful sound of that album and its excellent production (made with minimal technical resources) knowing that it was made in 1981 and not 18 years later. Only the edition of House in the desert (Perro Andaluz, 1990) to have the complete discography of the artist available in virtual form.
The launch of the biographical book Galemire – his music and his time, by Eduardo Rivero, published at the end of 2019, awarded this year in the Graffiti Awards, could lead us to say that this 2020 – in which five years of his death was completed – was “the year Galemire”.
End of the year wishes
Although 2020 was lavish in editions of the historical catalog of national music, what is missing is a lot. Considering what was uploaded this year and some stamp announcements that have yet to go through, it’s tempting to make an incomplete list of possible Christmas and New Year ‘gifts’.
The reissue of the records Mists & mists (1985) and The wheat of the moon (1989) by Eduardo Darnauchans completed his studio streaming discography. Just missing White Nights (Orfeo, 1991) the live album recorded at the Solís Theater, to have all his work in digital format.
This year the first solo album of Fernando Cabrera was finally uploaded, The wind in your face (1984). We could wait shortly Blue Divers (1986), Time is after (1989) and City of silver (1998), so that all his solo albums are. His work so far would be completed with Cabrera’s first approach to music with the trio Watchesvideo (1981) and the incredible duet album with Eduardo Mateo, recorded live in 1987.
And speaking of Eduardo Mateo, the only thing missing The fly (1989), to have all his solo work streaming.
This year we were able to meet again with all the albums of Los que were cantando. Hopes are not lost to recover Jorge Lazaroff’s solo discography from which two fundamental albums are missing: Tangatos (Ayuí, 1985) and Ball in the middle (Orfeo, 1989).
As in 2020 we were able to listen again to the records of Los Traidores from the 80s, it would not be bad to complete the work of Los Estomachos (missing Stomachs from 1987 and It will not have condemned that I endure 1988), reissue the album Visitors from Zero (1987), the album Los Fools al natural (1987) from Los Tontos and the solo work of Renzo Teflon, Je-Je (1988).
Apparently soon we will be able to enjoy the album virtually Not one more minute of pain (1983) by the trio Travesía, made up of Estela Magnone, Mariana Ingold and Mayra Hugo, which is excellent news. It would be a good time to reissue Mariana Ingold’s first solo album, It all depends (1987) and his 1988 duet album with Leo Maslíah, which luckily can be heard on Bandcamp, but not on other platforms.
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