Putumayo World Music
If Argentina's Buenos Aires was the center of the world, all of us would be entangled in the webs of hyperactive tango. But, since Argentina presumably exports more beef than tango, we are doomed to be putting on weight instead of shaking our asses as stylish lunatics. "Tango Around the World" walks the listener to different locations where tango does not suffer from jet lag – or does it?
The opening track, Ousmane Touré's "Dimba", recorded in Senegal, lets in all kinds of external influences, serving almost like a revised copy of tango for the new generations. But the second track, "Kangastus", by Finland's M.A. Numminen & Sanna Pietiänen, is much less permeable, featuring the long pauses and the easily imaginable body positions based on the step-step-step-close pattern.
"Tango Around the World" is clearly a record for ballroom exposure, but it also has a certain encyclopedic value for it maps out tango's geographical and stylistic long arms. It is a real pleasure to hear what appear to be fat cello lines on Fortuna's "Tango Idishe", from Argentina's neighboring country Brazil. As is with great delight that one goes up northeastern to find cold Norway busily doing some hot dance steps, as heard on Electrocutango's "Felino".
Surprisingly enough (or maybe not so), it is Liana's "Estrela da Tarde", hailing from Portugal, that manages to come up with a firecracker of musical influences. While her voice is clearly detached from fado's encompassing delivery, the surrounding ambience is tango at its finest, but the bed where all these elements converge to has electronic sheets.
There's even a vintage aspirin for the vinyl nostalgic minds: on "Gia Ligo", by the Greek duo Alexis Kalofolias & Thanos Amorginos, you can hear the creeping detritus of a worn-out record. And then, of course, four native cuts from the country that brought us this somehow schizophrenic music. All of them are quite good but sound a little too regional and revisionist, whereas the rest of the album tries to move a little step out of tune.
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