Columbia's answers to the classic ‘art school kids form a band’ formula. These untrained musicians have a modus operandi of spontaneously composing songs direct to four-track, and a sound that is gentle, minimal and intimate.
They sound like a cross between North American lo-fi indie kid four-trackers and South American crooners such as Jobim and Joao Gilberto. Frail, idiosyncratic, sometimes playful, sometimes sad, and always beautiful and if I understood more Spanish I would probably understand the humor that sounds like it's in there occasionally as well.
The band has a mix of familiar indie four track sounds - the requisite drum machine beats and cheesy casio/synth sounds, the acoustic guitars and vocals that alternate between disaffected and softly sweet. They also have distinctly South American elements like the clave beats and melodic sensibilities. A great and refreshing combination of two musical worlds.
Las Malas Amistades say that their music is a way of wiling away some of Columbia's endless season of rainy days and this sounds just like that - a group of friends discovering sound in a living room between coffee and discussions about art and life. Nice.
