From Bogotá – Colombia, MERIDIAN BROTHERS is a contemporary neo-tropicalista group founded in 1998 from the interests of Eblis Álvarez(composer and multi-instrumentalist) as a musical laboratory for a smallaudiences and distributed at the time in cassette format.
Starting in 2007, the project became a live act formed by a groupuniversity friends: María Valencia (wind instruments, percussion andkeyboards), Eblis Álvarez (vocals, guitar and direction), MauricioRamírez who joined the band in 2016, replacing Damián Ponce (Drums),Alejandro Forero (keyboards), César Quevedo (bass) and in soundengineering, Alejandro Araujo (replacing Juan Camilo Montañéz).The group performed its first concerts in 2008 at the local Bogotanscene, later reaching national festivals, and then acquired internationalrecognition from the release of its fourth studio album “Desesperanza”(Soundway 2012) appearing in important magazines and specialized musicwebsites. (see press).
From 2010 to the present, the project undertakes international toursplaying at important music festivals and venues in Europe, The United States and Latin America including the Roskilde Festival (Denmark),Rencontres trans musicals (France), Worldtronics (Germany), FestivalPaleo (Switzerland), Rock al Parque (Bogotá-Colombia), NRMAL Festival(Mexico), Bahidorá Festival (Mexico) among others.MERIDIAN BROTHERS has released albums with several independent musiclabels such as La Distritofónica (Colombia), Soundway records (UK),Discrepant (UK), Staubgold (Germany), Names you can trust (USA), BongoJoe (Switzerland), OKRA (Japan).The style of MERIDIAN BROTHERS is part of the neo-tropicalista movementin Colombia taking place at the beginning of the 21st century. The rootsof the group can be found in the ephemeral Ensamble Polifónico Vallenatoproject, where its members (Eblis Álvarez among them) dedicated toexperiment with influences from traditional Colombian music such asvallenato, cumbia, Bullerengue, ‘palenquero’ sextet format, ‘Gaita’format, etc.
MERIDIAN BROTHERS proposes an experimental line of these origins with anever-changing, very personal and histrionic proposal. The firstrecordings (“El Advenimiento del Castillo mujer”– 2005/2014 LaDistritofónica/Discrepant, “Meridian Brothers VI” – 2009 LaDistritofónica, “Meridian Brothers VII” 2011 La Distritofónica) focusedon the search for sound paths with diverse unconventional formats withinan electro-acoustic direction.Since the album “Desesperanza” – 2012 Soundway, MERIDIAN BROTHERS hassystematically structured their style, drawing inspiration fromreferences from traditional Colombian (and Latin American) discography ina detailed way.
Meridian Brothers
Tuesday, 23rd May 2023 | 20:00 CET
SO36 | Oranienstr. 190 | 10999 Berlin-Kreuzberg
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