Behind the young band Trak Trak there is one or the other familiar face from the Franconian music scene. From left: Romina Schenone, Michael Ströll, Cyrena Dunbar, Pablo Delgado, Robin Van Velzen and Lars Fischer. The first LP will be released on Friday.
“The big problem with current pop music is that most musicians always want to do everything right,” wrote the musician and columnist Eric Pfeil some time ago in a clever article for Rolling Stone. This is particularly evident in the current retro scene: Most bands try their best to match the clichés of their respective genre in terms of sound and appearance as well as possible.
It is precisely the breaches of style and taboos that have repeatedly brought new developments to pop music, for example when early rock’n’rollers mixed rhythm and blues with country or when Miles Davis opened jazz to rock. When a bunch of well-known rock and pop musicians from the metropolitan region start a cumbia band on the initiative of a singing Argentine fashion designer, artist and Djane, then that’s no reason to frown, but a reason to hope.
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In fact, most of the musicians from Trak Trak – the name is purely onomatopoeic and has no deeper meaning – had little to do with South American dance music before. Keyboard player Cyrena Dunbar has achieved national fame as the front woman of the band Wrongkong, percussionist Pablo Delgado comes from the Argentinean rock scene. Drummer Lars Fischer is known as the bassist of rock bands such as Stadt aus Glas, guitarist Michael Ströll moves with Buddy & The Huddle and other projects in the broad field of Americana, while bassist Robin Van Velzen as guitarist, singer and songwriter between songwriting rock and noise -Experiments (Bambi Davidson) explored the possibilities of the guitar.
Only singer Romina Schenone, who came to Germany for love in 2003, was infected with the cumbia virus as a teenager in the clubs of Buenos Aires: “Cumbia is popular in Argentina, especially in the poor quarters, just like in the others Latin American countries too. And in each country cumbia sounds different. Each country has a special instrument that the others don’t use, the rhythm is played differently everywhere. “
Looking for a new sound
Which means that the question of the “real” cumbia does not even arise. What all variants have in common is the straightforward, in contrast to other Latin American styles, less syncopated basic rhythm in four-four time, which is also marked with a powerfully pumping bass drum in Trak Trak. But then Tex-Mex guitars or oriental-sounding synthesizer fanfares can also be heard.
“We couldn’t do an authentic cumbia, at least not as well as a South American band,” says Michael Ströll. “But that is also our strength. We are looking for a new sound. And I think we did well.”
The story of Trak Trak began about two years ago in the Nürnberg club shirt service, where a large part of the band has been artistically and organizationally active for years. After Romina had organized a cumbia dance evening there as Djane, she began to jam with Lars Fischer, then with more and more musician friends. The new role as a singer is not difficult for her. “I studied art in Buenos Aires, did exhibitions and also had a band at the art academy. I’m not afraid to put myself in front of an audience.” Even if Trak Trak’s European cumbia variant is primarily aimed at the legs, Romina Schenone attaches great importance to her Spanish lyrics.
Loud is not crazy
“The songs always have a meaning. They are not la-la-la-lyrics. The song ‘Salvaje’ tells of the fact that during the Argentine dictatorship many unadjusted people disappeared without a trace. The mothers of these people started under the dictatorship, Organizing protest marches and asking, “Where are our children?” President Videla and the government at the time called these people “the crazy.” If a woman has something to say, and if she says it out loud, then she will always labeled as crazy or hysterical. The song connects this story with the question of where we women stand today. “
Now what started promisingly in 2019 with a celebrated appearance at the Fürth Badstrasse Festival and the recording of the debut album “Sur Sur” in November of the same year has been harshly interrupted by the pandemic. Until concerts are possible again, you can hear yourself warmly with “Sur Sur”, which was published digitally in October. The LP will be released on December 18th on Michael Ströll’s own label Ciclismo Records.
Aktuelle LP: Trak Trak “Sur Sur” (Ciclismo Records)
