El Canto Del Loco

Given that El Canto Del Loco haven’t really been big on adding videos to their content on the iTunes Music Store (or certainly no kind of back-catalogue anyway, which would be a tremendously good idea…) it’s great to see that they have at least bunged a whole bunch of their greatest hits on there as videos in the form of clips taken from the “Radio La Colifata Presenta: El Canto Del Loco” DVD.

The DVD, which comes as part of a double release along with the main “Radio La Colifata Presenta: El Canto Del Loco” CD itself – in a beautifully packaged bundle – is of course a single film with a continuous narrative, following the band’s special sessions at the Jose Borda psychiatric hospital in Buenos Aires (and collaborations with fellow artists on some songs), but it is effectively chaptered by song anyway so it makes a certain amount of sense to break the songs out into discreet clips.

This outbreak of releases brings the roster of El Canto Del Loco videos on the iTunes Music Store to 19; or 20 if you include their collaboration with Lucas Masciano on “Me Gustas Cuando”.

Here’s an iTunes link to the videos…

If you didn’t get the CD/DVD bundle release, then do go treat yourself to these clips – they’re beautiful and uplifting and an absolute joy to watch.

I finally got hold of my ‘hard’ copy of the new El Canto Del Loco releases yesterday, when a double pack of “Por Mi Y Por Todos Mis Campañeros” and “Radio La Colifata Presenta: El Canto Del Loco” turned up from a Spanish eBay seller (as sadly you’re still not likely to find this gear in the shops in the UK…!)

“Por Mi Y Por Todos Mis Campañeros” to be fair, has been available on the iTunes Music Store for a few days now, although there’s still no “Radio La Colifata Presenta: El Canto Del Loco” (However, strangely, if you search for El Canto Del Loco in the search panel in iTunes, the title does actually show up – though it only leads to an empty result at present. Hopefully this means its on its way but not loaded up yet… we’ll let you know…)

Much of “Radio La Colifata Presenta: El Canto Del Loco” is in the vein of the latest single “Quiero Aprender De Ti” – in that the songs are largely delivered in a stripped-down semi-acoustic style; something which seems to work better on what are actually originally louder ‘rock’ songs like “Un Millon De Cicatrices”, “Personas” and “Corazon” rather than songs that were less full-on originally anyway (like “Ya Nada Volvera A Ser Como Antes” for example) – though all feel fresh with these revisited arrangements, and with guest appearances from the likes of Alejandro Sanz, and Leiva from the band Pereza.

Some of the treatments certainly also owe a lot to the way the band have handled some of the songs live – the touching version of “Puede Ser” for example, a beautifully understated “Llueve En Mi”, and “Besos” which keeps the live performance reggae leanings, although it’s obviously not got the pure grind of the live version.

Fittingly for a project that hinges on the groundbreaking psychiatric patient radio station from Buenos Aires, it’s a set that reminds you in every moment of the positive, healing life-affirming power of music in the world; and also fittingly part of the profits go back to Radio La Colifata.

*You can find out more about Radio La Colifata in this 2005 article from the BBC

“Por Mi Y Por Todos Mis Campañeros” on the other hand is essentially a covers album and a tribute album at the same time, with the band saluting the Spanish bands and songs that have been a part of the growing up and their development. Standouts for me would probably be “Mejor”, Años 80” and “Maria La Portuguesa”.

Both “Por Mi Y Por Todos Mis Campañeros” and “Radio La Colifata Presenta: El Canto Del Loco” come as special CD and DVD packages. Unless you have a particularly wonderful record shop near you I’d recommend getting onto Spanish eBay (ebay.es) and getting hold of them there; there’s some excellent sellers and despite Spain’s slightly excessive (international) postal fees and slightly slow delivery (though that could well be the UK side of things!) there’s no doubt whatsoever that this double double set is worth every penny / Euro.

El Canto Del Loco have released a new single, which was on the playlist at the recent gigs on the “Hasta Luego” tour – It’s called “Quiero Aprender De Ti” – it’s a nicely rounded power-ballad basically; really well executed, and now available to buy on the iTunes Music Store.
Click here to go buy it on iTunes…

You can also see a videoclip here which could well be taken from the forthcoming Radio La Colifata CD/DVD release.

As ever, any other info or links you might have – please do send them in; we’d love to share

This website is a labour of love by Gareth Bouch (that’s me…), a Brit who discovered El Canto Del Loco through an interview with MotoGP star Alvaro Bautista. Having decided to track down and listen to all I could, I fell in love with the band and made it my mission to promote them and pimp them to anybody I could.

The result is this site, though I also mention them on my other Alvaro and MotoGP sites and my personal blog.
Although there’s not anywhere near as much news about ECDL for those of use outside of Spain, I always try and keep my ear to the ground for anything interesting and, with the help of a couple of friends, aim to keep this site as updated and relevant as is possible.

If you have any news that you think I should be posting and sharing then please do get in touch by emailing me at info@elcantodelloco.co.uk

If you want to know more about me, you can follow my personal blog here…