Puntos cardinales

In Puntos cardinales the air moves between the earthly and the dreamlike, as if the guitar riff that opens the song spins on itself in a circle that never quite closes. There is something in its structure that recalls those old maps where north does not always point upward: the bass traces straight lines while the drums mark a beat that seems to fall out of sync yet never loses its way. It is not a perfect loop, but one that breathes, as if each repetition carried within it a small calculated disorder. The voice of Rubén Albarrán, here under the pseudonym Élfego Buendía, drifts between whispers and restrained shouts, as if he were telling a secret only he can decipher. The track lasts four minutes and forty-three seconds, yet within that time lie landscapes unseen on any common map.

This album, Cuatro caminos, was born at a moment when the band had already explored nearly everything they could do with their sound. Recorded in 2003, it was Café Tacvba’s first album where they left behind synthesizers to embrace acoustic drums and real percussion, as if they wanted to anchor themselves to something more tangible. The producers in charge — Dave Fridmann, Aníbal Kerpel, Gustavo Santaolalla and Andrew Weiss — were not seeking a polished sound, but one that sounded alive, even when layers of electronics peeked through the traditional instruments. The album’s title plays with the idea of crossroads: Cuatro caminos is a real place in Naucalpan, near the Toreo and the Metro station, but it is also a metaphor for the paths each band member took to reach the same point. Puntos cardinales, on the other hand, seems to be the compass guiding that journey, a song that points to no place in particular, but invites you to get lost along the way.