It might be disingenuous to categorize Banda De Turistas by U.S. groups they relate to (i.e. the Southern Cone Strokes*), but it would be criminal if I neglected to acknowledge their exaggerated appropriation of UK pop, a staple in the decades-old musical diet of Argentines. In “Cada Día,” the group is stripped of their Sgt. Pepper uniforms and left with casual street wear. While their outfits reek of '90s nonchalance, director Alaviu (Martin Bordini**) exerts a surplus of intellectual and skilled labor with new media technology in the likes and on the levels of Radiohead’s “House of Cards.” Similar to the data-mashed “El Rogadero,” the group willfully serves as a guinea pig for a new media experiment, in which color warmth—of photographic faces and bodies—is transformed into a gridded curtain of light-signifying points. In turn, the light points are given their own life as time-enacted, ambisonic sine waves (a total abstract breakdown of a Gestaltian whole). Don’t worry if you can’t make out their faces, I’ve seen them live, and they are gorgeous***.
* I couldn’t resist…Buenos Aires Beatles. Burger Record Rock Cannibals!
** I should recognize and send much love to the fellow new media collaborators: R3nder, Alex Dogrush, Salome, Valeria Laura, Estado Lateral, and the MCCWN community.
***#yeshomo