By Gerardo Guarache Ocque // @ stuttering
It did not sound like a guitar. It was like the howl of a primitive bird. Gustavo Cerati used his pedalera as an expressionist painter. He made love to his black and brilliant Paul Reed Smith while telling a story set in a dark Buenos Aires. And it was not just anger understood as a state of insane anger. The old song - aged in barrels for 8 years - invited the 90s to the righteous deities of Greek mythology. Thus began a journey called Comfort and music to fly .
He appeared as Jeff Lyne ( Electric Light Orchestra ). Large dark glasses, abundant curly hair, sky blue sweater. Relaxed and abstracted, connected with a sidereal force. He looked elsewhere, as if unaware that he was in front of a captive audience at MTV Studios at 420 Lincoln Road in Miami, Florida.
Before convincing them to make a special disconnect, the television network, the main Latin American showcase of the time, had hit the doors unsuccessfully several times. They would have loved that the Argentine trio was the first in a list in which they were already Fabulous Cadillacs , Caifanes , Charly Garcia , El Tri , Los Tres and Cafe Tacvba . Cerati did not like the simple idea of " putting the electric song inside a speaker ".
Soda was already giant, all gigantic that can be a rock band in Castilian. He had edited Sueño Stereo (1995) and was on tour in Central America and the United States when MTV let them do just what they wanted. Already felt the distance between Cerati , Bosio and Alberti , so they said goodbye the following year. A kind of telepathy, developed through many essays and great presentations, generated a compact and relaxed assembly.
Soda Stereo gave the " In the City of Fury " chorus in its slow and intoxicating version to Andrea Echeverri ( Aterciopelados ), with whom they shared the tour. A wise decision, of course. A duet that touched perfection. The Colombian submerged in the letter; The leader, inspired, hugging his effects intoxicated guitar, watching the Furies fly over him.
In the city of fury (Comfort and music to fly, Soda Stereo, 1996)
Supported by the brothers Fainguersch (chelo, bassoon and viola) and producer Tweety González (keyboards and samplers), they rescued " A missile in my wardrobe ." The ska , shelved in its debut album homonymous of 1984, was varnished with the chords of "Chrome Waves" (the video is not available) of the British band Ride and become another song.
"Tea for three" was electrified and crowned with the riff of " Cementerio Club ", original of Luis Alberto Spinetta in Pescados Rabiosos . Like "Steps ", he enjoyed a therapeutic string arrangement. And how to forget the wildly sexy " Entre caníbales ", which surpassed its original version. Impeccable from top to bottom.
Te for three (Comfort and music to fly, Soda Stereo, 1996)
The edition of Comfort and music to fly that already surpassed the 20 years of its launch included two numbers of the section that the trio interpreted standing with enough distortion, striking the one to unplugged . Both songs were still fresh at that time. " Electric Angel " and " She used my head like a revolver " passed through a different filter, pointing the opposite direction: more alteration, more effects, less subtlety.
She used my head as a revolver (Comfort and Music to Fly, Soda Stereo, 1996)
By rights of record right, the compact only included seven of the thirteen songs that played that night. They resolved to alter the order for the album and complete with tracks that had been left out of Stereo Dream . First " Sonoman ", a kind of " Tomorrow Never Knows " instrumental of the future that at the end says: "I already warned you, here they have music to fly ". Then " Glider ", " Coral " and " Superstar ", pure B-sides of Soda that would be gems longed for by any other band.
Coral (Comfort and Music to Fly, Soda Stereo, 1996)
The 1996 CD allowed multimedia navigation. In his PC, the public could walk through the living room of the cover and, when you click on any element, enter a different room. When the TV was pressed, for example, a fragment of the " Genesis " cove was seen, a song by the Argentinean band Vox Dei included in his album La Biblia (1971). When snooping in another area, you could play the recording technician and separate the tracks from " Coral ": to hear only the voices or the guitar, the maracas, the drums, the bass.
In 2007, once the contractual knots were unlocked that prevented the use of any of the 13 recorded songs, a new edition was released with the original order of the show and all its contents, without the bonus tracks recorded in the studio. Themes such as " Intensive Love Therapy ", " Zoom " and " When the Tremor ", " Walking Through Rome ", " Eternal Disc " and the aforementioned " Genesis " were added as they appear on the DVD.
Despite the friction between its members, who were already ventilated, the appointment of March 12, 1996 in the MTV studios left a record of Soda Stereo at its highest point of creativity, conceptual neatness and quality in their performances. Cerati played and sang in an unbeatable way. She was a very sure band of herself dictating to her contemporaries: how to manage the artifices to excite, how to put each ingredient in its right measure, how to curate the work itself. Comfort and music to fly is the same as the big albums: over time, it seems to sound better and better.
