MY MUSIC MOMENT - Errorsmith

A music obsessive to the core, Erik Wiegand is maybe an inconspicuous presence in the vastness of the Berlin electronic scene, but his productions, whether in collaborative projects like MMM, Smith n Hack or under the moniker Errorsmith (his solo project), are anything but low profile. For this issue of My Music Moment, Erik remembers discovering Colombia’s traditional sound whilst on tour with legendary Berlin video artist group, Visomat Inc.

In 2003, Visomat Inc, a VJ crew at that time, were invited to play in Colombia and asked me to join them to make an audio video concert together. I hadn’t been to South America before so I was very excited, especially about the music. While we were there, I listened to the radio a lot and there was this one track that really stood out. It was something of a summer hit in Colombia that year and on heavy rotation. We’d be hearing it every time we got in a cab.

It sounded like no other song they were playing. It had a pounding techno beat composed of carnival street drum samples. Super fast, around 160 BPM in a very ‘in-your-face’ production! Apparently, the song is about a dancing turtle. The singing interlocks with a nice thin sound from wind instruments I’d never heard before. I found out that it was a remix of an acoustic track by Los Alfa 8 called ‘El Baile de la Tortuga’; the original is nice too. I couldn’t find out who made the remix, and I don’t have a good sounding copy of it. In DJ sets I still play out the distorted radio recording I made back then!

During the stay, I found lots of other great music too, mostly traditional. I fell in love with the soulful organ playing of Jaime Llano Gonzalez. On the flea market I bought some Cumbia compilations and even found some superb field recordings of traditional music from Colombia’s Atlantic coast. The fact that I liked the traditional music so much made me wish I had grown up in a country where I could embrace and draw inspiration from the traditions more. I grew up in Germany and to me, most of the good music came, and still does come from far away, not from my homeland. I always thought that’s normal, but during this trip I realised it isn’t. It made me feel I’m missing something.