KINKY • ATLAS • AVAILABLE DECEMBER 2
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
On their 2001 self-titled debut, the five-piece band KINKY (Gilberto Cerezo, Ulises Lozano, Carlos Chairez, Omar Gongora, Cesar Pliego) emerged from the desert city of Monterrey, Mexico with a set of world-savvy songs that belied the fact that most of the ideas were birthed in their small home studio. As musicians who not only knew their various instruments but each other for many years, a collective vision of channeling sounds across the globe was definitely within reach.

As an album, Kinky combined the stylishness of discerning American and European dance grooves and straight-ahead rock ‘n roll with traditional rhythms from throughout South America (such as cumbia and norteño) for a fresh sound. It has attracted fans and supporters all over the U.S. (where the band has spent much time playing live shows to fervent crowds), and people have discovered that Kinky truly comes alive on stage. Kinky has played over 180 shows in the past year alone, traveling the world while also working on musical ideas and recording sounds with their laptop computers.

They’ve also developed an avid following in the UK, where Chris Allison, the British producer who’s worked with Coldplay and The Beta Band, signed Kinky to his Sonic360 group of labels in 2000. It was that deal which led to a licensing agreement for the U.S. and Canada through Nettwerk America, adding Kinky to their stable of forward-thinking artists. Allison helped produce their first album, but for their sophomore effort, ATLAS, Allison encouraged the band to produce the album on their own and to seek out a fresh setting to further develop their ideas.

So they headed deep into the jungle, taking up temporary residence in an isolated ranch in Quintana Roo, Mexico for a month. In the beautiful beach-adjacent isolation they found both creativity and productivity, composing seven of the album’s songs. “It was vacation and hard work at the same time,” remembers Gil. “And when we were in the jungle we were surrounded everywhere by insects and animals. Even when we were recording, the computer screen was full of things walking around and the instruments were full of insects.”

From there, Kinky traveled to a different sort of jungle — Los Angeles — in order to write a few more songs and work with venerable engineer Thom Russo (System of a Down, Audioslave). Russo helped the band bring out a more raw and rock-driven sound. “The approach for this album was different from the first in that on this one we wanted to focus on a live, organic band sound,” says Ulises. “In the first album we recorded ourselves and made loops. On this record It was more like a live session where we’d record the whole track on tape, rather than just digital. You can hear all the organic sounds like guitar, drum, bass and vocals all sounding live.”

It’s this contrast of environments — represented by the image of a fantastical grasshopper-jetliner hybrid on the album cover — and constantly being on the road that makes up the themes of Atlas. Sonically it is a clash of the organic and the digital; lyrically it roams from remembering to grab and savor the moments you can (“Snapshot”) to finding something special in what most take for granted as those in-between times when you’re waiting for something else to happen (“Airport Feelings”). But they start right at home in Mexico, with the propulsive single “Presidente.”

“We’re asking, which color is our president? Green, white or red?” explains Gil. “These are the colors of our flag and they cover different ideas. Red can be very drastic or violent, or mean danger. White means peace or being clean. Green means things are growing up or developing. So each color represents state of mind or feeling and I think it’s a good analogy with our flag.”

Throughout, Gil continues to embrace the literary spirit of magical realism in his lyrics. “I feel like the small details can be huge things,” he says. “Everyday things have magic around them. So what I try to do is make big troubles about little things.” In one of the best such moments on the album, “Maria Jose” tells of a man in whose stomach a butterfly grows out of the worm he swallows from a bottle of tequila in a drunken stupor. It’s a tale that could easily have flowed conceptually from the pages of a Gabriel Garcia Márquez story – or a Carlos Castenada book, for that matter.

Atlas also features a few select guest contributions. Songwriter Itaal Shur (perhaps best known for Santana’s “Smooth”) came on board to co-write the fanciful “Not Afraid,” which has lyrics like, “They say dreams enter from the feet/So they recommend bare feet to sleep if you want Morpheus to come.”

John McCrea of Cake (who Kinky toured with) lends his considerable vocal talents to the punchy Colombian rhythms and vintage organ effects that make up “The Headphonist.” The song describes living life behind headphones, something that its author Gil does frequently, penning the lyrics while walking down Hollywood’s streets. “Headphones are a place where you can feel stereo like nowhere else. You can have it inside of your head and have a real sense of where sounds are — which ones surround your hair, which ones are in your stomach, which are on the left or right — and you can separate them.”

Music you can feel all over your body? Now that’s Kinky.