Waxploitation founder Jeff Antebi conceived Future Sounds as a series of compilations devoted to “hidden gems of a certain high high high quality” from various countries around the world. So far, there are two albums in the series: 2012’s Future Sounds of Buenos Aires, and Future Sounds of Argentina, which comes out today (June 23).
“I have no doubt there will be ten future sounds albums from Argentina before there are other ones,” Antebi tells Billboard.
“I could do a new Future Sounds from Buenos Aires or Argentina and never run out of great, great stuff. An artist starts their career in Argentina and right out of the gate they are amazing; they have this incredible musical imagination and no fear of making music.”
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The entrancing expedition of an album opens with a track highlighted by a hypnotizing clave from Klik & Frik, the cumbia-tripping duo Frikstailers’ side project. Macha Kiddo, a Costa Rican rapper who lives in Buenos Aires, follows, laying her game rhymes over a Bronx-inflected electronic beat. Matias Zundel, known as Lagartijeando, brings bird calls, folklore and funk to his stand-out ode to Brazilian Tropicalia. Twelve other artists on the seamless but eclectic selection include Madre Chicha, Federico Estevez and Barrio Lindo. There’s a pleasing groove-induced dose of nodding digital mysticism, and a consistent sound that, in various incarnations, can be described as electronic folklore. Nu cumbia fans should find perfect fit for their tastes here, as will followers of the ever-evolving non genre genre known as Latin Alternative.
“It doesn’t necessarily represent what is currently popular or will ever be popular in Argentina,” says Antebi, who describes the songs on the album as “a little bit left of center… It’s about what’s going to stop someone in their tracks and say, ‘God what is this?”
Antebi managed Gnarls Barkley, Danger Mouse and Broken Bells, then took a hiatus (or as he describes it, fled) from the music industry to photograph global conflicts, which resulted in a 2013 book called Fever Dreams. On the phone from Los Angles earlier this week, Antebi notes that his interest in Argentina wasn’t sparked by traveling there, and he doesn’t mention a love for the urban scapes of Buenos Aires or Argentina’s lesser-known regions. He explains that it’s purely a musical connection. The sounds from Argentina brought him back to the music business for the joy of it, and easily wiped a lot of other music off the map for him when selecting for the Future Sounds series [at least so far].
It started when he happened to hear a track by Chancha Via Circuito (Pedro Canale), an artist on Buenos Aires’ revolutionary ZZK label whose music could be described as the linchpin of the Future Sounds of Buenos Aires compilation, which was produced together with ZZK. Antebi reports that the 2012 compilation has earned about a quarter of a million dollars in synchs; tracks from the album have been featured on series including Homeland and Breaking Bad. He says Waxploitation has already licensed some of the songs from Future Sounds of Argentina.
He describes the new compilation as “mostly just a way to give an introduction, or an advanced course, to people who love music. I hope they are exposed to the magic that I felt when I heard it. The cool thing about all of them is they don’t even know how good they are,” Antebi adds, referring to the artists on Future Sounds of Argentina. “They’re just doing it.”