Cero y uno

This song sounds like a journey in which each note seems to move between two states: silence and noise, the minimal and the maximal. The blend of acoustic rhythms with electronic beats gives it a pulse that doesn’t stay still, as if the band were testing the limits of what can sound "normal" in a song. The title Cero y uno is no coincidence: it speaks of the tension between what is unsaid and what bursts forth, between what doesn’t exist and what is built note by note.

They recorded it in Naucalpan, right where the band rehearsed and where the Metro of Mexico City connects with the neighborhood that gave them their start. It was in 2003, when Café Tacvba had already been breaking molds for years, but this album took them to new ground: for the first time, they used real drums and percussion instead of programmed loops. Rubén Albarrán signed as Élfego Buendía, one more nod within an album that plays with identities. Among the producers were Dave Fridmann and Gustavo Santaolalla, but also Aníbal Kerpel and Andrew Weiss, who helped give it that mix of rawness and precision that makes Cero y uno sound like an experiment that worked out.