When you leave your country, your circle, you realize what you are what you grew up with. Obvious things like salsa, and merengue were always there, and not seeing it every day made us realize who we were realize our identity. Musicians from Turkey or India that stuff you never get to see back in our hometown.Īnd on the other hand, leaving Venezuela made us realize what we were missing. You get to see a lot of shows and share influences with different types of people than you would in Venezuela. You have every kind of music, every type of musician around the city. You get influences from all over the world. Some of the guys live in Miami and Venezuela, and I'm still in New York. In 2000 we decided to make the move to New York, and by 2001 we were here.įor seven years we all lived in New York, but now we're all over. After 1997 we started contemplating leaving Venezuela for better touring opportunities. It was either London or New York, and it turned out to be cheaper for us to fly to New York. As I said, we used to be a very underground band in Caracas, so we wanted to try something else, like going to play where all of our heroes are. It was like an adventure for us just to come here. We came to New York in 1995 when we released our first album just to play. What did moving to New York do for you guys creatively? How did it affect your music? ![]() We try to keep in mind that whatever we do music wise is going to be music that we're going to be playing on tour, so we better like it because we're going to play it a lot. So we've managed to make the music that we like, and we have evolved in that way. Winthome Batamanta 28 AT AMAZON En invierno, la. We record ourselves, we make our own albums and then we license it to different labels. Taza soy tu amiga invisible 12 AT AMAZON Otra taza muy original y bonita para alguien muy especial. But pretty much, the band has been managing all of the music. After we agreed to end our deal with Luaka Bop, we were independent for a while and now we're licensing with Nacional Records which has been amazing. So I think that was like a before and after for the band.īecause we came from playing underground clubs in Venezuela to opening for bands in the States and traveling from coast to coast. When we started we were a very underground band in Venezuela, and then we got discovered by David Byrne and got signed to Luaka Bop. So luckily for us, we've always been able to make the music that we like. How have Los Amigos Invisibles evolved since that first album in 1995? Yeah, you guys have been doing this for a while now. So its been a busy and creative year as well. We did a lot of shows celebrating the anniversary, so this year we've been running around with Commercial and Not So Commercial, while working on our new album. ![]() 2011 was our 20th anniversary as a band so it was a pretty busy year. Up on the Sun: How has 2012 treated you so far? DJ Afro, on the evolution of the band, and the making of a great alternative Latin album. We caught up with Los Amigos guitarist and mastermind Jose Luis Pardo, A.K.A. The 20-year veterans found out they still had a thing to learn about themselves and the gozadera funk fusion project they started so many years ago in their hometown of Caracas. Instead of winning the Latin Grammy for best pop record, they took home the award for best Latin Alternative album. But somewhere between, "In Luv With U" and "Merengue Killa" the plan backfired. The idea was to reach out to a wider audience, by making the most commercial album the six-piece band could possibly muster. But it turns out the joke was on them all along. In 2009, New York-based Venezuelan funk/dance outfit Los Amigos Invisibles thought they were being pretty slick when they decided to try and shed their underground Alternative Latin act image, putting out a record chock-full of uplifting pop rhythms. ![]() (Watch the video below.The best punchlines are the ones that you don't see coming. Bend your ear, for example, to the effervescent track “Dulce” (Sweet), which sounds like it could’ve been smuggled out of Caracas via Miami and straight into Studio 54 in 1979. Their 2009 album “Commercial,” which won the Latin Grammy Award for best alternative album, played like an airy, 21st century, Spanish-language reimagining of vintage funk grooves by the likes of Chic and Parliament-Funkadelic, with samba, bossa nova, power merengue and acid jazz hints keeping the mood light and espresso-frothy. Over the last two decades, Los Amigos Invisibles has established itself as one of the wittiest dance bands to come out of South America. “La Que Me Gusta,” the first single from the new record, will be released next month. The New York City-based group also will embark on an 18-city U.S. Philharmonic music director Gustavo Dudamel among its friends, will release a new album, “Repeat After Me,” in April. Los Amigos Invisibles, the Grammy-nominated, Latin Grammy-winning funk-merengue Venezuelan band that counts L.A.
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