Product Description

Built upon a heavy foundation of Afro-Latino rhythms, Making Movies creates a bilingual, psychedelic re-envisioning of the Latin American "son. The band s second album, A La Deriva, "adrift" or "swept away", produced by Steve Berlin of Los Lobos and released by United Interests, tells a story based on the struggles of an immigrant family that tragically falls apart in America, and the consequential impact on the following generation. Taking cues from Latin American folklore, the band's sound swings intensely, at times sounding like Compay Segundo being played by Jimi Hendrix and at other times like The Talking Heads digging deep into a reggaeton rhythm.
"...the young band Making Movies (and its producer, Steve Berlin of Los Lobos) shows us how deeply thought-out lyrics sound next to a rhythm track that somehow both propels and floats without violating the laws of physics. - NPR

Review

About a year and a half ago, local band Making Movies opened for Los Lobos when the legendary Latin rock band was in Kansas City. Making Movies had been incorporating more Latin rhythms into their Spanish- and English-language rock, and one Los Lobos member liked what he heard.

Between sets, Lobo Steve Berlin asked Making Movies if he could produce their next recording. They released the result, entitled A La Deriva, on March 5th, and they re reaching out to create an international audience.
Since Making Movies has spent a lot of time touring in recent years, local shows have become a rare treat for long-time local fans. A recent show at the Record Bar in Westport turned the normally rock-drenched club into a packed dance party. From under a mane of blonde dreadlocks, singer/songwriter and guitarist Enrique Chi guided the band through a maze of Latin rhythms and experimental rock sounds. Back in September of 2011, when Los Lobos first heard Making Movies from their dressing room, they immediately became fans.
About 30 seconds in, I think we re all like Man, what record is that? That s really cool, said Los Lobos member Steve Berlin from his home in Portland. And it s like, that s no record. It s Making Movies doing their first song. And I was like, Holy s**t, what the hell s going on here? So, as a band, we were knocked out, and then I sat there for the whole show. I was riveted. And once they were done, we just started talking. I said, If you guys ever get an inkling to make a record, call me first. So, sure enough they did, and, I guess, not very long after that we were in a studio here in Portland making a record.
Recording with Steve Berlin
About six years ago Panamanian-born brothers Enrique and Diego Chi and drummer Brendan Culp started a band named after a favorite Dire Straits album. A few years later, the Making Movies lineup was completed with the addition of percussionist and keyboardist Juan Carlos Chaurand. In March of 2012, the group traveled to Steve Berlin s hometown of Portland to make their second full-length recording. Enrique Chi says that their new producer didn t try to change the band. Instead, he helped them to take their own ideas to the limit.
Everything we went for, we went fully for, explains Chi. Like if we re trying to make a vocal harmony sound reminiscent of this genre of Latin singing, he would make sure we went all the way there. And if we were trying to make a guitar part loud and nasty, we made sure it was really loud and nasty. And I think those contrasts ended up creating the sound that we got for the album.
Berlin says he only had to encourage the band to do what they normally do because Enrique and the group seemed to have a consummate understanding of how to make good sounds.
I think Enrique s a master orchestrator. I ve very, very, very, very rarely encountered any musician who I pretty much never had to touch his amp or his guitar, said Berlin. It was like, he had completely dialed in a sound that was just breathtakingly beautiful and complex, and kind of perfect. It almost never happens.
Recording with the music veteran was more than a little intimidating, and the band says they found themselves overthinking and worrying about what they were playing. But Berlin told the young musicians to turn off their brains and go with their instincts.
He would touch a talkback button in the studio, explains Enrique Chi, So you d hear the talkback turn on, I can hear you thinking. And that was when we were like, We have to do it again.
I find that once musicians start questioning the process and questioning what they re doing, then you literally I can hear them thinking, says Berlin. You can literally hear the gears grinding a little bit. They re worried about the next --KCUR.org written by Alex Smith

Who would have guessed that one of the most exciting new Latin acts to appear in a blue moon would materialize out of the presumed cultural sinkhole that is Kansas City, Missouri? Yet somehow, against all odds, Making Movies exists. The group is led by two Panamanian-American brothers, Enrique and Diego Chi, and I feel fully confident saying that the band synthesizes what s happening in indie rock and in Latin music better than anyone else out there today.
Making Movies songs are rooted in heavy Afro-Caribbean percussion grooves everything from salsa to cumbia and even reggaeton s dembow. Yet as it fitting for a fully bilingual band (they sing in English and Spanish), they are equally fluent in the sonic language of indie rock as they are in Latin genres. The tunes are covered in sumptuous guitar ambiances, dotted with sly basslines, and topped by the pretty voice of singer Enrique Chi. Throughout, there are psychedelic flourishes that betray an adolescence spent listening to Pink Floyd records, especially present in the occasional orgiastic jam-outs that are equal parts symphonic rock and Cuban descarga.
Here s the thing most bands who try to do this kind of thing tend to be faking it a little bit on either the indie rock or the Latin sides, but Making Movies appears to pull-off both traditions flawlessly, and blend them in a way that you hardly notice they re doing anything unusual at all, let alone something extraordinary.
Next week, Making Movies releases their second album, A La Deriva, beautifully produced by Steve Berlin of Chicano rock veterans Los Lobos. They ll also be embarking on a big tour in the US and Puerto Rico. None of the new album tracks are publicly available online yet (you ll have to take my word that they are muy bueno), but you can get a taste from this live video of Pendulum Swing, one of the new tunes. Spoiler alert: there is an extremely heady sax solo/percussion breakdown around the three minute mark that may or may not rock your face off. --MTV Iggy Written By Marlon Bishop

Kansas City might strike you as an unusual hometown for an Afro-Cuban indie rock band that sings largely en español. And you wouldn t be the only one. Even the producer of Making Movies second full-length couldn t believe it, either. To be honest, a pointy-headed intellectual like me was kind of shocked you could find something like this in Kansas City, of all places, says Steve Berlin, said producer, who also happens to be the keyboardist and saxophonist for a little band called Los Lobos. I had to rub my eyes to make sure I wasn t dreaming.

Well, Berlin wasn t dreaming: there is a band in the Midwestern United States that makes the kind of music you might expect to hear in the American Southwest, or perhaps Florida. And it does quite a good job of making that music, too. Making Movies, who takes its name from a Dire Straits album, is sort of an indie rock-world equivalent of a Santana or a Los Lobos, in that the members keep their heritage front and center in their music but not too front and center to become a distraction. There s actually quite a bit going on with their new record, A La Deriva (or Spanish for adrift , and, yes, there s a movie out there with that as a title, too): there s some straight-ahead indie rock, there s some singing in English, and there s some hand-drum percussion that will get you moving your rump in your living room, should you be inclined to do so. What makes this band even more interesting is the fact that the band members don t all hail from Mexican heritage, which you might expect upon first blush: Enrique Javier Chi, lead singer and guitarist, and his brother Diego, who plays bass, are actually Panamanian. (Percussionist Juan-Carlos Chaurand is the lone Mexican, and Brendan Culp rounds out the band on drums.) So there s a lot that s quite unexpected about Making Movies, let alone where they call home.

What makes A La Deriva particularly intriguing is how the band subtly shifts song structures, hiding some of the best material in the latter half of their songs, which might be entirely different in tone and structure from the first half. Cigeo Sin Querer , for instance, starts out with a basic guitar riff and some light percussion before erupting into sonic euphoria with a guitar solo that simply shreds and peels the paint off the walls in the best Santana-like tradition. It s the longest track on the album at 5:42, and my personal candidate for the best. Album closer Chase Your Tail begins as a straight-up indie rock ballad that you d hear on any album by any hand-wringing hipster with a beard and glasses (Bon Iver, maybe) but morphs into a Spanish rave-up that wouldn t be out of place on a Los Lobos LP. Te Estaba Buscando starts out with cymbals being raked before a Latin percussion rhythm kicks in. Quite the stuff to sash-shay to, but then the song takes a mean turn into something dark and foreboding and rockist. This is a band with quite a few tricks up its collective sleeve and no problem hiding some real aces at the end of its tunes.

While half the songs are in Spanish, vocalist Enrique Javier Chi has a smooth and seductive voice that will keep you captivated, even though, as in my case, you might not understand what he s singing due to the language barrier. In fact, the English lyrics aren t something to write home about as they rely on clichés about trophy wives, love, and the ilk. They re not bad, either, but nothing quotable really leaps out at me you d almost prefer he stuck to the Spanish, though doing so would probably undercut the band s aspirations to be taken seriously on a national scale. Still, Chi is most distinctive when he s singing in what is, to many, a foreign language, and he feels stronger and more comfortable when he s working in what I would assume is his mother tongue. --Pop Matters Canada Written By Zachary Houle