Travel Tunes

In preparation for spending much time waiting in airports, bus terminals, etc. I’m carefully selecting appropriate music for my destinations. 

For Spain, I’m into Natalia Clavier lately. She sings in Spanish over mellowed out jazz breaks.  I heard her first when she opened for Los Amigos Invisibles at the 9:30 club a few weeks ago. Despite only seeing her last two songs, I was impressed.  Los Amigos put on a fun show too, and I’ll be jamming to them in Spain also.

Bajofondo, the tango-dance project of Gustavo Santaolalla, is going to be in heavy rotation. Santaolalla, who I heard from his work in movie soundtracks like “Babel” plays a spooky Mexican guitar on his solo album. 

South American rockers Juanes and Carlos Vives are energetic and probably a good jolt for waking up in the morning.  Both fuse Latin rhythm and instrumentation with pop and rock song structures.

I don’t have much experience with Chinese music. The bit I’ve been able to seek out so far has been on movie soundtracks – Chinese movies like “Lust, Caution” and “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.”

Lonely Planet recommended an album called “Moon Rising over Rosey Clouds,” which features traditional Chinese string arrangements.  Yo-Yo Ma is the most famous Chinese musician I know of, but most of his work that I’ve heard is very Western-sounding.

On arrival in both countries I’m going to look for new music, and bring some back to share.  (I don’t know if China has the Hollywood DRM disease, so hopefully I really can share by posting songs, or at least links.)