NADA SE PIERDE, ANDRES CALAMARO
EFE EME, Argentina **1/2
Rating: 51
By Carlos Reyes
Efe Eme is a well known web magazine in Spain; they are celebrating their 10th anniversary with some huge surprises. Several artists embraced the publication by presenting unreleased material in the form of either LP or EP entirely free to the readers. Among them are the Spanish duet Amaral, the always forgotten Ariel Rot and the big dish, master lyricist Andres Calamaro. It would be wrong to refer to Nada Se Pierde as a new Calamaro album considering it’s made up of poor recordings and covers put together, but I guess rockers don’t embrace the mixtape format as much as they should. Latin radio has put Calamaro’s previous production La Lengua Popular (2007) aside, which has to be his most mainstream album yet, but also his best in a while. It only takes to play the first tracks to know this is even worse than a ‘rarities’ compilation, a track like “Mejor no hablar” is so pathetic it should have never seen the light, it’s kind of a painful gift. Here is the thing, in some other time this set of songs would have been welcomed with much warmth considering he is a high profile artist, but as the rise of the netlabel continues artists must realize the audience is looking up for actual quality, and unless you’re a hardcore Calamaro fan, this free release will come as a loopy and sloppy album that doesn’t even sound good on the iPod. What it does offer is a Calamaro recording in the English language covering some of his big influences, decomposing himself almost entirely to the point it reaches the garage-sound only to square the precocious sound even more. Nada Se Pierde works best in tracks like “Los Mareados” or “Una noche sin ti” because the acoustics don’t hurt as much or feel like forced rapid tracks. The big highlight and leading track is his take on “Bajan”, a classic by Luis Alberto Spinetta that had been previously covered by Gustavo Cerati. So yeah, wait for the next real album and don’t conform to leftovers.