Ronroco (2024 Remaster) Gustavo Santaolalla

• 1 Way Up (2024 Remaster) 04:01
• 2 Gaucho (2024 Remaster) 03:11
• 3 Atacama (2024 Remaster) 03:10
• 4 Coyita (2024 Remaster) 03:19
• 5 Jardin (2024 Remaster) 03:02
• 6 De Ushuaia a La Quiaca (2024 Remaster) 02:50
• 7 Zenda (2024 Remaster) 03:23
• 8 Lela (2024 Remaster) 02:56
• 9 Iguazu (2024 Remaster) 04:49
• 10 Pampa (2024 Remaster) 04:20
• 11 Del Pago (2024 Remaster) 03:02
• 12 La Vuelta (2024 Remaster) 03:05
• Total Runtime 41:08

Info for Ronroco (2024 Remaster)

With Ronroco, whose music was later used in several films, commercials and television series, Santaolalla (Grammy and Oscar winner) fused conventional styles with a progressive sensibility in an album of original melodies inspired by traditional Argentinian music and influenced by music from Japan, Africa and Eastern Europe.

Ronroco was released in 1998 on CD only and is now available for the first time as a remastered HiRes download. The name of the album is derived from one of the most important instruments in Santaolla's oeuvre, the ronroco, a stringed instrument similar to the charango, but slightly larger and lower in pitch. The charango, a small South American guitar similar to the ukulele, has 10 strings arranged in pairs and a body that was originally made from armadillo armour.

At the time of the release, he explained: "I've been playing this instrument since I was a child and have been collecting songs and thoughts for this record for a long time. The idea was to make a non-traditional album, a soundscape". On Ronroco, Santaolalla plays charango, ronroco, Andean pipes, whistles and guitar in collaboration with his long-time partner Aníbal Kerpel on vibraphone and melodica.

The result is unlike anything Santaolalla has recorded in the past: an intimate musical journey and a unique labour of love that he has worked on for years.

Gustavo Santaolalla, charango, whistle, tin whistle, guitar
Anibal Kerpel, vibraphone, melodica

Recorded at La Casa, Los Angeles, California
Engineered by Doug Schwartz
Digital Processing at Audio Mechanics, Los Angeles, California
Mastered by Steve Hall at Future Disk, Hollywood, California

Digitally remastered

Gustavo Santaolalla
Long before the first of his 16 Grammys and decades before winning the first of two Oscars, Gustavo Santaolalla was well established as one of the main creative forces in the early Argentine rock nacional movement of the ‘60s. “Visionary” is the word that better synthesizes his many facets: Singer, composer, producer guitarist, charango and ronroco player, talent scout, entrepreneur… His entire career is all about finding an identity, a search he began at age 16 years with the band Arco Iris, a pioneer in the fusion of Latin American folk and rock. He followed Arco Iris with Soluna (which featured a then-unknown Alejandro Lerner), and after moving to the United States in the late ‘70s, he formed the band Wet Picnic and began a solo career that includes three albums: the influential Santaolalla in 1982, the rare gem G.A. S. in 1995, and finally Ronroco (1998), an entirely instrumental album played on charango.

As a producer, his career started with León Geico’s eponymous 1973 debut, continued in the ‘80s with iconic albums by G.I.T. and Mexico’s Maldita Vecindad, and exploded in the ‘90s with Maldita Vecindad’s masterpiece El Circo (1991), their fellow countrymen Molotov (their 1997 debut sold over 2 million copies worldwide), Argentina’s Divididos (La era de la boludez), and the first in a long list of classic recordings he produced for a new Mexican group that would change the rules of the game for rock en español: Café Tacuba.

The inclusion of one of the songs from Ronroco in the soundtrack of The Insider (Michael Mann, 1999), was the first step in his career as composer of soundtracks, working on films of some of today’s most important directors such as Ang Lee, Alejandro González Iñárritu, and Walter Salles. Santaolalla was brilliant on iconic movies such as Amores Perros, 21 Grams, The Motorcycle Diaries, North Country, Brokeback Mountain, and Babel; with these movies he won two BAFTAs, a Golden Globe , and two Oscars in a row for Best Original Score for Brokeback Mountain and Babel). In December 2012, the Walter Salles film On the Road, based on Jack Kerouac’s classic, was released featuring a score by Santaolalla. In 2013, Gustavo scored the soundtrack for the highest selling new video game of the year, “The Last of Us” for which he has already been nominated for a VGX (Spike) Award.

Starting in 2002, Santaolalla combined his talents as producer, performer, and composer for Bajofondo, which has released three albums, plus a remixed one. The group have won three Latin Grammys; most recently two for 2013’s Presente, which gained Latin Grammys for Best Instrumental Album and Best Alternative song as well as a nomination for Best Album. The band has also won two Premios Gardel Awards – Argentina’s most prestigious music award.

Among the numerous awards and distinctions received by Gustavo: Premio Gardel, Konex de Platino, Personalidad del Año (CAPIF), two Grammy awards, and 14 Latin Grammy Awards. In 2014, Santaolalla will be releasing a new solo instrumental album entitled “Camino” through Sony Masterworks. He will also be collaborating with the legendary songwriter Paul Williams on a theatrical musical based on Guillermo Del Toro’s cinematic masterpiece Pan’s Labyrinth, as well as the animated feature film “The Book of Life” (also produced by Guillermo Del Toro). The highly in demand Santaolalla will also be working on “Arrabal” – a theatrical presentation depicting the story of a young girl in Buenos Aires , Argentina. The action takes place in the early nineties, in the tumultuous aftermath of the military fascist regime that ended with 30.000 people “disappeared” during the seventies. In addition, he will continue travelling around the world performing live with Bajofondo and giving talks and Master classes.

This album contains no booklet.