GUSTAVO CERATI
SIEMPRE ES HOY
BMG LATIN
Gustavo Cerati could have easily retired to a Buenos Aires café after the 1997 break-up of his group Soda Stereo with the knowledge that his status as one of Latin alternative's greatest visionaries was secure. Instead, Cerati followed his Soda saga with a solo career that has produced two jaw-dropping experiments in poignant electronic music, Amor Amarilloand Bocanada. The genius continues on Siempre es Hoy, a recording awash in musical meanderings but always returning to the well of distress from which Cerati draws his inspiration. Cerati has forever excelled at using various blips and spins to document vicious emotional fluctuations. Added now to the valleys and peaks of his programmed salvation are jittery guitars, solemn piano solos and intermittent buzzes that guide listeners through his musings on the infectious harm that love inflects. Lest listeners jump off a cliff after a spin, though, Cerati makes sure to equalize his misery with a good dosage of danceable beats and playful swirls, which should make people smile through the tears. He even dips into the forgotten realm of Afro-Argentine culture to bring out such gems as “Sulky,” which sounds like an Andalusian steed galloping through the Pampas with its ever-chiming charm. And of course, there's Cerati's voice, a severely underrated prayer that, when unleashed on tracks like “Artefacto,” could rouse the entire Argentine nation from the doldrums from which it's currently suffering. Siempre es Hoy drowns in its creator's own pathos by the album's end, but give him a break—Cerati may not be God, but he's just as close to perfection.
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