Nuevo

Kronos Quartet (Composer), Severiano Briseno (Composer), Agustin Lara (Composer), Juan Garcia Esquivel (Composer), Traditional (Composer), Alberto Dominguez (Composer), Silvestre Revueltas (Composer), Osvaldo Golijov (Composer), Margarita Lecuona (Composer), Belisario Garcia de/ Elizondo, Jose Jesus (Composer), Ricardo Gallardo (Composer), Ariel Guzik (Composer), Chalino Sanchez (Performer), Cafe Tacuba (Artist), Luanne Warner (Artist)

Product Details

• Performer: Chalino Sanchez
• Composer: Kronos Quartet, Severiano Briseno, Agustin Lara, Juan Garcia Esquivel, Traditional, et al.
• Audio CD (April 9, 2002)
• SPARS Code: DDD
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Nonesuch
• ASIN: B000063NCZ
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #57,542 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
To say that the Kronos Quartet's Nuevo is their most adventurous outing to date is hardly an understatement. This diverse collection of Mexican compositions and traditional tunes brims with an unpredictable energy and a dazzling array of Latin American guest performers, and, yes, Kronos keeps up throughout. A cocktail pop tune from Esquivel gets covered, there's a chamber arrangement of Revueltas's sprawling orchestral work Sensemaya, and Nortec Collective member Plankton Man remixes Kronos's interpretation of "El Sinaloense" into a sizzling dance music track, which closes the disc. The playing is spirited, to say the least (just check out "El Llorar," with guest vocalists Alejandro Flores and Efren Vargas). But this is foremost a party record. A bevy of reverb effects and instrumentation (including a squeaky musical leaf solo on "Perfidia") ensures that things stay unpredictable. Production work by Rock en Espanol producer Gustavo Santaolalla infuses this disc with an edgy modernism. The bulk of these compositions have been arranged by composer Osvaldo Golijov, who seemingly brings a manic energy and a playfulness to everything he touches. Chamber music purists may scoff, but the rest of us will be busy dancing and thrilling to this exciting, genre-blurring Kronos project. --Jason Verlinde

Product Description
With 'Nuevo' - a project based entirely around Mexican composers, musical traditions and influences - the Kronos Quartet have delivered one of the most striking group odysseys to date. Produced by Gustavo Santaolalla, both an authority on Latin American art music as well as the most in-demand producers of rock en espanol, the album also features a host of guest artists from both the concert hall as well as the streets of Mexico. Housed in a slipcase. 2002.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Kronos Quartet outdo themselves!, May 21, 2002

By	jaime carrera (Minneapolis, MN USA) - See all my reviews

Ranging from folkloric to post-modern, "Nuevo" displays Kronos Quartet's pure love of Mexico's wide spectrum of musical history. From jarabes and sones ("El Sinaloense" and "El Llorar") to reinterpretations of work from some of Mexico's most beloved composers (torch song legend Agustin Lara and space age bachelor Esquivel) and collaborations with contemporary mexican artists (punk-folk-ambient pioneers Cafe Tacuba and Plankton Man of hybrid electronica outfit Nortec Collective) this cd has it all. There's even a tribute to mexican comic Roberto Gomez Bolanos' variety show "Chespirito" ("Chavosuite") with the theme music to two of his most popular characters: El Chavo and El Chapulin Colorado. with Mr. Gomez Bolanos himself and his wife Florinda Meza (two of Mexico's most beloved comic actors) chanting the lines from the long-running show. Which proved to me that the Kronos Quartet trully did their homework for this album. An absolute treasure!

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Mexican "classical" music, May 10, 2002

By A Customer

Describe this is not easy but it is impecceble produced and played, give a nice touch of Mexican folkmusic and has both classical and surrealistic moments.

Perfect listen carefully too AND use as a background music with more or less sober guest :-).

This Kronos Quartet give us a lot of stuff... modern, contemporary classic, moviemusic, older stuff and this more folkmusic style. I had bought at least 100 records so far this year and this one is one of the most innovative.

If you like classic music, folkmusic, humour, style, bittersweet emotions, viola, violin, cello, marimbas, excellent sound and production, good performers this is for you. Classical purists should go somewhere else.

Highly recommended

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Crowd Pleasing Contemporary "String" Music, May 1, 2003

By	lick_my_stereolabia (Stanford, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This is the Kronos Quartet, but it is NOT the difficult, arty-experimental-edge music that they often do. The reviewer below who said this is a jarring CD was absolutely without a doubt mistaken about which CD he was reviewing. This is by far the most accesible Kronos CD yet, with every track sweet to the ears. It is a fanciful record of music from and inspired by Mexico. And the composers do a great job of evoking the spirit of Mexico, with traditional rhythms, instruments, harmonies, and so on. Some of these tracks toy with the stereotypical elements of mariachi or chickenscratch. Most of the songs are built on festive melodies, but a few tracks are more abstract and free form, one of which is a beautiful pastiche of recordings from around a Mexican cafe. I put "String" in quotes because there is never a point where it sounds like just a bare string quartet; their instruments are always amplified, sometimes pedal distorted, and often joined by other instrumentalists, vocalists, and samples. You can tell they just had a ton of fun making this recording - there's a buoyant feeling throughout. This is a deligtful album with broad appeal and easily one of the best of 2002.