Amok! Amok!

Amok! Amok! sounds like a cry that tangles in the air, an explosion of energy that doesn’t ask permission to exist. The track kicks off with a rhythm that seems to escape from common time, as if the bass and drums had agreed to mess everything up without warning. The voice of Indio Solari —or rather, that of El Fisgón Ciego, as this album is signed— blends with choruses that sound like a crowd, but not just any crowd: a group chanting something that never quite becomes clear, as if the lyrics were an enigma resisting decryption. There’s something in that mix of controlled chaos and catchy melody that makes the track sound unlike anything you’ve heard before in Argentine rock. The length, just over five minutes, never lets up: it drags you from the first chord to the last, as if time itself had stretched so you wouldn’t miss a single detail.

This track wasn’t born in a conventional recording studio. Solari composed it with the idea of reuniting the musicians who played with him during his years with Patricio Rey y sus Redonditos de Ricota, but the reunion wasn’t easy: they hadn’t played together in years. When they finally gathered in the same place, the magic happened fast. The recording of the album Pajaritos, bravos muchachitos —where Amok! Amok! closes the record— was done in a climate of improvisation, as if time were pressing. There were no long corrections or endless takes: what ended up on the album was what came out in the moment, with all its imperfections and outbursts. That’s noticeable in the track, where the instruments seem to converse among themselves without a fixed script, yet never losing their way.

The album ended up being one of the nominees for the Premios Gardel 2014 in the category of best rock album, and its live debut was at the Hipódromo, a venue that, by itself, lends an air of spectacle beyond the ordinary. But beyond the accolades or the places where it was played, what remains is the feeling that Amok! Amok! isn’t just a song: it’s a moment where everything clicked, where past and present met without warning, and the result sounds like the future.