{"id":266564,"date":"2023-03-13T17:21:18","date_gmt":"2023-03-13T21:21:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/?p=266564"},"modified":"2023-03-13T17:21:18","modified_gmt":"2023-03-13T21:21:18","slug":"marco-alonso-no-rock-band-in-cuba-is-free-from-exodus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/culture\/music-culture\/marco-alonso-no-rock-band-in-cuba-is-free-from-exodus\/","title":{"rendered":"Marco Alonso: \u201cNo rock band in Cuba is free from exodus\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

Marco Alonso has just finished an electroacoustic music course in Budapest, Hungary. Before continuing to Havana, the Cuban drummer traveled to Spain to spend time with his family, and shortly after his arrival I took the opportunity to meet and talk about his career.<\/p>\n

In Madrid it is very cold. The afternoon looks like a fridge and people take shelter in several layers of clothing to protect themselves from the low temperatures. Marco wears a kind of scarf, a heavy winter coat, and looks for a place that is as warm as possible to shelter his body, accustomed to the Caribbean. Although he shares his days with his parents and his brother in the Madrid town of Las Rozas, his thoughts are on Cuba.<\/p>\n

We ordered two coffees and began to talk about his Reversible project and the first album recorded under his band\u2019s label, which he defines as a power trio, and which also currently includes guitarist William Pacheco and pianist Sandor Saint-Hill. It is an independent record that moves between progressive rock, ambient and the so-called World Music, and which bears the suggestive title of Caminando a ciegas.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Reversible project is an idea that emerged during the pandemic, from the distance we experienced,\u201d explains Marco. \u201cIn the midst of this complicated situation, I sought to do things that I had wanted to do for a long time and focus on my own projects, because until then I had dedicated myself to working for other musicians. I had collaborated with Ra\u00fal Paz, with Anima Mundi, with Eddy Escobar, and for the first time I felt the need to make my own music. This is how I had my first encounter with music production, with software, with recording and, of course, with composition, and from there I began to create Reversible.\u201d<\/p>\n

A saxophone graduate from the National Art School (ENA), the musician is 32 years old and has an interesting career in the Cuban metal scene. He started with the band M\u00e9dula from Pinar del R\u00edo and since then he has maintained collaborations that, due to his diversity, speak of his understanding of music as a universe in which anything is possible. In fact, he refuses to label his work within established genres.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople label progressive rock as a subgenre of rock. But I would classify the Reversible record as progressive music that draws on some of the classic prog rock of the 1970s. I see it as progressive music that expands much more stylistically,\u201d he comments.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a search in jazz, in world music, in ambient, in electronics. There are African sounds. The concepts are very avant-garde, eclectic,\u201d he adds. \u201cWe are making free music that functions as a laboratory of concerns.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Cuban drummer Marco Alonso, leader of the Reversible project. Photo: Courtesy of Marco Alonso.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

With M\u00e9dula, Marco recorded, among other projects, the soundtrack of the film Boleto al para\u00edso, a testimony of an era \u2014 early 1990s in Cuba \u2014 and of very significant events within the underground Cuban rock scene.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was an invitation from Edesio Alejandro. They were looking for a soundtrack that sounded a bit thrash to accompany the story of the freakys who injected themselves with HIV in those years, and Pinar del R\u00edo was one of the provinces with the most records of such incidents. Edesio called us and we recorded three songs, one of which was interpreted by the band Qva Libre. We recorded the scenes playing live at the Alamar Amphitheatre, in Havana,\u201d he tells of that experience.<\/p>\n

The drummer has in his file a job that defined his way of seeing rock and music as scenarios that expand radically. These are his recordings and concerts with Anima Mundi, one of the jewels in the crown of rock made in Cuba, a lineup that is more recognized outside the island than inside, and that mixes currents such as progressive rock, symphonic rock and new age.<\/p>\n

\u201cGoing through Anima Mundi was a school. All the influences that I was acquiring with them gave me a lot, including performing at festivals with big bands like Jethro Tull and The Flower Kings. Having shared the stages with those bands expands one\u2019s vision and tastes,\u201d he affirms.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith Anima Mundi I recorded the album I Me Myself (2016). Then we did two tours of Europe and then recorded the album Imsonia. They have been victims of the same thing that all of Cuba is suffering: the exodus. Several of its musicians have left the country and the band is now taking time at the level of realization and production,\u201d he explains.<\/p>\n

Marco mentions the word exodus several times during our conversation. He says that his band has also suffered the consequences of emigration, one of the most serious conflicts gripping Cuba today.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the process of recording the album we were victims of this problem. Our first bass player, Jos\u00e9 Berm\u00fadez, a spectacular musician on bass and violin, left Cuba during the recording of track 4 of the album and the process had to stop. Then a second bassist appeared, Jos\u00e9 Machado, from the jazz group Cauce, and we finished the record. He provided that sound that we were looking for because we wanted to mix the jazz parts with the sounds of the synthesizers. We are happy with the result, but Machado decided to stay during Omara Portuondo\u2019s tour of Spain and the project was once again uncompleted,\u201d says the young musician.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe three of us who remained in the group plan to continue in Cuba; do things from Cuba and move towards festivals. But right now, it\u2019s difficult to maintain stability at work and in the lineup,\u201d he reflects. \u201cI don\u2019t think there is any band on the island free from exodus. Many musicians, like so many other Cubans, are considering existentially and at a creative level if they are going to stay in the country. It\u2019s something very serious.\u201d<\/p>\n

Marco plans to release the album in Cuba in the coming months. Caminando a ciegas had as a prelude the recording of the four-song EP titled Respuestas, based on an ancestral divination system and whose music is already on digital platforms.<\/p>\n