For the past 16 years, the Latin Alternative Music Conference (LAMC) has become the place to promote and prepare the future of Latin rock and Latin electronica.
Parallel to showcases, there’s a series of panels with the purpose of building a solid business base and transmitting knowledge and experience from the top (executives, managers, decision makers) to the bottom (aspiring musicians and bands looking for an opportunity to break into the US market).
This year, and for the third time, Anita Benner (Premier Account Director, second from the left in the photo below) represented Mood Media at the conference. She participated in a panel called “#TBT: A Look Back at 15 years of LAMC Panelists’ Predictions and Innovations.” In true Throwback Thursday fashion, the panel revisited questions from 15 years ago and tried to analyze the evolution of the indie market for Latin rock in the US.
Events like the LAMC are necessary because they help to grow a solid network for rock bands and people in the industry of indie Latin music in an area that is expanding, but still remains a tiny portion of the whole Latin music market.
This year, three up-and-coming bands caught my attention.
The first was Mr. Pauer (Toto Gonzáles) from Miami, FL, a DJ, producer and creator of the Electrópico scene that has been working his music in a meticulous way. Toto is primarily a percussionist and his music spins around that, tambores (drums) and electronic beats. In his last album he invited a series of singers and the result is an amazing variety of Latin dance with elements of “Latin trip-hop,” ambient, and strait forward salsa.
Here’s a track from Mr. Pauer first album called Soundtrack, which is part of Mood’s music library.
Another band I’ve been following is Diamante Eléctrico, a power trio from Bogotá, Colombia. The band was formed three years ago by Juan Galeano (bass and vocals), Daniel Alvarez (guitar) and Andee Zeta (drums). With many years and many projects behind them, these three musicians found each other at the right time and felt the same sense of urgency for making good old rock music. The sound is loud, compact and perfect. This is one of the bands to follow in the future.
The final band I discover was Centavrvs. They come from México and, to put in a simple way, their sound reflects the experimentation and the evolution of the electronic scene in Mexico. But, they keep the spirit of freshness and simplicity of bands like Café Tacvba.
– Submitted by Juan Pablo Restrepo, Music Design