Federico Aubele

In his native country of Argentina at the tender age of eleven, a friend convinced Federico Aubele to be a couple of Beatles and start playing guitar-- " You'll be George, I'll be John, " he said. His friend eventually became interested in literature, but for Aubele it was too late--he was infected by the music bug.

From there he delved into music in all its forms and became an avid vinyl junkie. A few months here as a Kinks fan, a couple of weeks there as a Ramones fan, many more months listening to Mozart-followed by Wes Montgomery, Jimmy Smith, Vinicius and Tom Jobim all became an important part of his record collection. In time he discovered the avant garde Argentinian tango composer and bandoneonist Astor Piazzolla." Piazzolla was the first Argentinian artist that I connected with," says Aubele, " prior to him, I listened mainly to foreign artists. Piazzolla sounded like Argentina and, more specifically, Buenos Aires. It's like Sinatra and New York, Piazzolla and Buenos Aires, it's the perfect soundtrack for the city." After playing guitar, composing and arranging for several pop bands, and DJing a wide range of music styles in scores of clubs and lounges in Buenos Aires, Aubele began working on a solo project. Based on sampled beats and sounds taken from his many records, he laid down plenty of tracks, which were usually lead by a hypnotic guitar line. "At the beginning I didn't have any other instruments besides my guitars, Aubele explains. So I would just take everything from my records, transform it, manipulate it, and then add the guitar. The guitar is, and always was, my main instrument. We understand each other very well. It is hard for me to imagine myself doing a track without it. I've tried, but I always end up adding the guitar. I like an organic sound, so I just play and record everything myself--from the bass, the shakers and the keys, to synth sounds, etc. Today, I still don't have a MIDI interface, I just don't see what I could use it for. The addition of vocals-intially as samples, then live female singers (friends from Buenos Aires)-- led to the composition of proper songwritten material brought together with his arsenal of existing instrumental tracks. Then Aubele did what any aspiring muscian would do. " I had the Thievery Corporation single of 'Focus On Sight' so I got the website info from the back of the sleeve, logged onto the ESL Music website and emailed them asking where to send demos. " The first of these demos got the immediate attention ESL Music label heads Rob Garza and Eric Hilton of Thievery Corporation. " I got a very detailed email from Eric, with a couple suggestions and he asked that I send him some more music, " says Aubele. The subsequent demo's were equally impressive and Aubele signed to ESL Music and Thievery Corporation agreed to produce his debut album. The resulting body of work, Grand Hotel Buenos Aires is a sound collage of latin guitar and dub-influenced tracks with Spanish lyrics that are simply brilliant. The LP will be preceded by Aubele's debut single Postales this May. This 10" will feature two tracks ("Postales" and "El Amor de este Pueblo") that can be found in CD form on the upcoming ESL artist compilation entitled Den Of Thieves.