Tijuana Cartel

Fri 26th Mar, 2010 in Features

The Gold Coast five piece Tijuana Cartel is one of Australia’s hardest working acts may not have a high rotation hit, a big name producer on their album or someone to carry their guitars around but they do have the strong fundamental power of five musicians on stage creating something new, open and honest to ears night after night.

Tijuana Cartel was born on the stage and this is where the band thrives; reaching out and winning over audiences who keep coming back time and time again to hear their eclectic mix of flamenco meets beats meets tribal, Latin, Cuban and hip hop varieties.

Carey O’Sullivan, co-producer, guitarist and keyboardist with the band, explains that a lot of the live show is improvisation and that many of the songs evolve from the band just jamming on stage and saying “hey that’s cool, let’s remember that” and then letting them grow over time until they mature enough to go on an album.

On stage Tijuana Cartel turn an electronic based music project into something rich and organic. There are the strong infectious danceable aesthetics of four to the floor and break beats but these are effortlessly entwined with other diverse layers and live elements which create a very global spin on modern dance music.

“It can be a challenge sometimes with a hybrid live/ electronica setup,” O’Sullivan admits, “no one likes to see someone just pressing play and we are continuously devising ways to make the electronica part more live.”

The band has explored many a global corner; all providing musical growth and wisdom to their performance. Tijuana Cartel’s percussionist even spends a couple of months each year working his musical craft in Cuba, learning about the art of rhythm through new cultural perspectives.

In addition to spanning the wide brown land fair and far, the band have also played enviable residencies internationally including shows at Bali’s KuDeTar Bar and at Beijing’s’ famous Loong Bar during the Olympics Games. China “felt like an old martial arts film” but O’Sullivan raves that “Bali was equally fantastic. It seems everyone has a real passion for music there and the shows seemed to go down really well with the locals and travellers alike. We’re all big fans of seeing new places and we always take the time to soak up some of the culture, especially musically.”

Along the gigging road Tijuana Cartel do so by meeting and collaborating with different people including West Australian violinist Phoebe Corke who now plays with the band at some of the WA shows. “We met Phoebe Corke, the violinist, at Earthdance and we’ve been good friends ever since. We always get her up for a song or two whenever we come over to WA, she’s very talented.”

Tijuana Cartel have also collaborated live with “old buddies” Oka although they’re cautious about doing it again due to “this uncanny knack of disaster striking with regards to stage sound whenever we’re on the same bill!”

“At the Subsonic festival last year we were booked to play a couple of slots after [Oka] on the main stage and we had just finished sound checking when the roof of the stage, which had obviously been gathering rain the previous night, opened up and dumped buckets of water straight down onto the mixing console which really put a spanner in the works.”

“I think we had one speaker out of four working, no subs, no foldback and all manner of distortion and humming coming from the one speaker that was still going. Luckily the Salmonella Dub guys were headlining and witnessed the disaster and offered up the last half hour of their set for us to do a proper set. It ended up being a great show with the Sal Dub guys and Ganga Giri coming out on stage with us for a big jam towards the end. I think there were 11 or 12 of us on stage at one point jamming out whatever we could dream up. It was pretty wild.”

With a debut LP Frequent Flyers released to critical acclaim in 2007 and a new EP in the works for a release later this year, O’Sullivan explains that Tijuana Cartel have been experimenting a lot with new beats and tempos this time around.

“Fortunately, there’s been some new styles emerging over the past few years though like reggaeton and dubstep which are opening peoples minds and showing that it doesn’t have to be a monotonous straight rhythm for people to dance. That gives us a lot more space to work in which is great.”

Tijuana Cartel play at Apollo Bay Music Festival this weekend before heading to west to headline the West Coast Blues & Roots’ Theatre Stage amongst a huge variety of exceptional artists including Matisyahu, Crowded House, Gogol Bordello and John Butler Trio.

“We love touring WA,” O’Sullivan claims, “the reception we’ve had from the WA crew has just been great, even from the earliest beginnings at Earthdance. People have always turned up to our shows from the first time with open ears and open minds and it’s great to see those faces coming back to every gig. You just can’t say that about every place we play.”