Rosario Blefari
Vernon Crane meets enigmatic Argentinian renaissance woman, Rosario Blefari.
Rosario Blefari, something of an Argentinian renaissance woman (she’s a well regarded poet and an actress), has been tirelessly working away producing great music in her native Buenos Aires for the best part of 20 years now. Her first band, Suarez, a brilliant, experimental pop/noise hybrid who hit their high watermark with 1999’s superb Excursiones took a decidedly leftfield stance from the start.
Rosario, it seems, was bitten by the avant-garde early on. “My influences started with Radioactivity by Kraftwerk and that’s echoed by my interest in experimenting with other elements, ambient and rhythmic loops, samples, heavily treated conventional instruments and so on… Bringing chaotic elements and alien timbre into traditional rock early on, I also read about ‘contemporary’ music and Cage, who I admire and who has always been a big influence.”
It's no surprise then that after two solo albums Cara and Estaciones that have fused Rosario’s soaring crystaline vocals, allusive lyrics and pop dynamics with scraps of found sound and electronic pulses, that with Four Women No Cry a multi-artiste release on Germany’s Monika label she’s gone for out and out electronica. Suarez “have spilt up for good” but Rosario isn`t turning her back on rock just yet, electronica “is a parallel development.” That may well see her releasing more material on Monika. How did this unlikely German-Argentinian collaboration come about? “Gudrun (Monika's head honcho) heard Cara in a shop and wrote asking me for more material. I could not believe it as the only time I went to Berlin I bought a record on Monika which is still one of my favourites.”
While we are on the subject of labels, what about Fosario’s own Fandiscos? “Fandiscos came about as a way of releasing Suarez’ first album, we then put the rest of our stuff out on the label as well as other rock bands like Fotophobia and my first two solo albums… Recently we’ve put out the box set of Suarez albums, re-edited and with a book of photos of the band. “Another must-have".
Finally, who would you recommend our readers keep an eye on, in the distant world of Argentine electronica, according to Rosario? “I’m very interested in the work of Emisor, Juana Molina, Leandro Fresco, Diego Vainer y Daniel Melero.”
Rosario, it seems, was bitten by the avant-garde early on. “My influences started with Radioactivity by Kraftwerk and that’s echoed by my interest in experimenting with other elements, ambient and rhythmic loops, samples, heavily treated conventional instruments and so on… Bringing chaotic elements and alien timbre into traditional rock early on, I also read about ‘contemporary’ music and Cage, who I admire and who has always been a big influence.”
It's no surprise then that after two solo albums Cara and Estaciones that have fused Rosario’s soaring crystaline vocals, allusive lyrics and pop dynamics with scraps of found sound and electronic pulses, that with Four Women No Cry a multi-artiste release on Germany’s Monika label she’s gone for out and out electronica. Suarez “have spilt up for good” but Rosario isn`t turning her back on rock just yet, electronica “is a parallel development.” That may well see her releasing more material on Monika. How did this unlikely German-Argentinian collaboration come about? “Gudrun (Monika's head honcho) heard Cara in a shop and wrote asking me for more material. I could not believe it as the only time I went to Berlin I bought a record on Monika which is still one of my favourites.”
While we are on the subject of labels, what about Fosario’s own Fandiscos? “Fandiscos came about as a way of releasing Suarez’ first album, we then put the rest of our stuff out on the label as well as other rock bands like Fotophobia and my first two solo albums… Recently we’ve put out the box set of Suarez albums, re-edited and with a book of photos of the band. “Another must-have".
Finally, who would you recommend our readers keep an eye on, in the distant world of Argentine electronica, according to Rosario? “I’m very interested in the work of Emisor, Juana Molina, Leandro Fresco, Diego Vainer y Daniel Melero.”
