Maniquí, greetings! Tell us something about this track.
The lyrics of that track were written when the last century was ending, in the age of analog telephony, and now, 15 years later, in the age of SMS, has been finished.
The lyric:
Las palabras viajan
humedeciendo los cables
sonidos que se cruzan
y ensordecen el aire.Miles de bocas
hablan al mismo tiempo
pero sólo una
espera en silencio.Usted no ha recibido ningún mensaje nuevo.
Translation:
The words travel
dampening the cables
sounds that are crossed
and they deafen the airThousands of mouths
talk at the same time
but only one
waits in silence.You haven’t received any new message.
I think it talks about technology and feelings, and sometimes those concepts seems to be a bit antagonistic. Who didn’t ever have a very long interchange of human feelings through a phone line? Technology can modulate and demodulate feelings too.
And, finally, it is also some kind of tribute to Kraftwerk and their great song: “The telephone call”.
You describe your music as “techno con error humano” – techno with mistakes.
Despite we make techno music and have lot of electronic instruments in our studio/live act, we work with little automatization.
We play instruments to where our fingers allow us. Also, we improvise a lot, and with the risk of doing mistakes. But does mistakes sometimes are nice, and give to our music a quota of humanity and swing.
Our instruments doesn’t work at all if we don’t touch them. We only program a rhythm in our drum machine. Machines also improvise with us…
On the Exaudi website, we see the members of the group are el Robot (teclados, programaciones, vocoder, voces, consola, efectos, luces y performance robótica), el Concertista (octa-pad, electro-percusión, teclados y voces) and yourself – el Maniquí (teclados, voces, sampler y electro-percusión).
The Concertista (30 years old) is the unique one that has studied music during 15 years. He plays the piano and now he is also studying guitar. He used to play in punk bands, rock-beat, reggae… He is a rastaman and he loves to walk slowly!
The Robot was constructed 38 years ago. By imprudence, programmers put some fractal geometry in his positronic brain, and the consequences are obviously: it’s a robot that have dreams. And he dreams to be an artist.
When young, he played drums, until he sold the drum to buy a cheap keyboard. He played in rock bands, funk-reggae bands, heavy and blues.
Also, he dance as a robot… of course, he is a robot.
The Maniquí (me) is the youngest: he is 24 years old. He studied a bit of keyboards when he was a kid, but nothing serious. He has no musical backgrounds, nor musical skills. He plays the keyboards just using three fingers of each hand.
The Robot and the Concertista have met in 1997. The excuse was a musical keyboard test. So, Exaudi was born. “Exaudi” means, in latin, “worthy to be listened”.
Then, Exaudi grew with a electronic drummer (José Luis Hill) and a female singer (Adriana Bosque). Then, they left the band, buta new female singer appeared: el Hadita (Natalia Jofré). The triangle was closed.
This formation played during many years…
Then, the Brujita (Cyntia Albeza) appeared and the band grew again. She was a singer too. In the middle, during an electronic party, I saw and heard Exaudi playing and I fell in love. It was the band of my dreams… no guitars, no drummers, just keyboards, effects, vocodes, machines, and nice people. Also, I almost was hypnotized by the Robot and his robotic dance…
I started to follow Exaudi, I was the number 1 fan. I made Exaudi’s first website… with frames!!!
Then, el Concertista y el Hadita moved to Barcelona, and I became the Maniquí. A new triangle shape: el Robot, la Brujita y el Maniquí. We play during 2003 and 2004. Then, la Brujita moved to Spain too. The Concertista came back to Buenos Aires in November 2005. And now, we are here.
You build effects and get hands-on with electronic instrumentation at Midi-midi (un servicio técnico para músicos especializado en reparación, restauración y modificación de instrumentos musicales electrónicos). What effects or instruments are your especial favourite(s)?
I love keyboards! I would love to have an analog keyboard, like a MiniMoog someday. My favourite effects are delays and filters, like envelope filters and phasers. And of course, the vocoder: robotic voices are sweet!
You are also “Diseñador-web”. And active contributor to open-source Textpattern. What do you like about Textpattern and what do you like to create on the web?
I wouldn’t say I’m a web designer! I’m just an enthusiast of XHTML and CSS and that stuff! I’m still learning and trying to learn more… Some day, I would like to say I’m a web architect, like ubernostrum.
What I love about Textpattern (the software) is that it’s very powerful yet simple (once you make your head around it). I like that it returns you the HTML you want to output. For the kind of sites I usually try to make, it’s the perfect tool. And of course, I love the community around TXP. I love to be at forums, reading and learning, and helping when I can.
I havent created too much in the web yet. But now i’m working (very slowly) in the Exaudi website and in the Efectos Cluster website. It’s hard to me, but funny and rewarding. TXP and web development is some kind of psychotherapy for me.
I hope to be a professional some day and earn a few bucks with this!
When are you going to repurpose some of your filters and distortion pedals for websites? We could use something to dirty up web design, it’s too clean!
Jajajajaja! too clean?! do you think? there are a lot of tables to be cleaned yet!
But you are right… designing with web standards makes the web very clean, even from the graphic design perspective: soft colors are in vogue… big fonts sizes, big white spaces… very cool designs… also very zen… less is more…
We need some punk designers with web standards knowledge to make the web a clean but also dirty and noisy place again.
3 “el Maniquí recommends” in Beunos Aires?
We are a cheap country. You (foreign friends from the First World) can eat, drink and have too much fun with few dollars or euros!
Maniquí recommends to meet Argentinians.
Also, he recommends to go to a football (soccer) match, if possible Boca vs River or Independiente vs. Racing and feel the passion we have for this sport (but be careful! this country isn’t an amusement park!).
Recommended food: empanadas, asado, choripán con chimichurri, dulce de leche…
Recommended drink: wine and also fernet with coca-cola.
I recommend to walk this city and go to San Telmo, Boedo, La Boca, Barracas and Pompeya neighborhoods…
And of course, meet the Maniquí and enjoy an Exaudi live act!
Who is going to win World Cup 2006?
I hope Australia and Argentina. You have a great goalkeeper. And in this sport, if a team doesn’t receive any goals, it has great chances to win.
Of course, in that hypothetic case, Argentina will defeat Australia… but only if the Kun Agüero plays.
But we must not forget… Brazil plays the cup too!
Thank you Maniquí. And respect! People should keep an ear open for more music from exaudi.com.ar
Thank you, nardo, I was honoured by this interview. Good vibrations for you. Musik non stop!
Cool interview. Thanks nardo. Listened to the mp3 and like it .. more please!! :)
Did not know maniqui is a musician as well. Gifted guy.
btw nice site