Long-time lovers of live performance Tijuana Cartel are planning big things in 2014, with singles, an EP and a live album all in the pipeline. The multi-genre-crossing electronic/world music group from the Gold Coast is on its way to Sydney ahead of Bluesfest commitments, with a passion for getting up close and personal with the fans.
The live aspect of Tijuana Cartel’s music is something that means a lot to percussionist Daniel Gonzalez and provides him with the drive to carry on in a career that’s spanned a decade already.
“We have such a loyal fan base and that, along with selling out shows, really keeps us excited,” he says. “Because we can still get people to our shows we continue to work hard and explore a lot of different avenues in sound.”
Never belonging to just one musical style, the band prefers to play music with the aim of getting feedback in a live setting and then packaging what comes out as simply ‘Tijuana Cartel music’.
“We’ve definitely got deep electronic roots in our music, but there’s also the world music element,” explains Gonzalez. “Over the last ten years I think we’ve experimented with different sounds and it’s developed into our own sound. At our shows you’re really experiencing something that in this day and age is completely original; it sounds like nothing else and that’s what we pride ourselves on.”
Planning to release a three-track EP soon, as well as a live album from one of their shows, the band uses live sets to come up with new directions to take songs in – an ideal way to gauge what’s working and what isn’t.
“We tried the normal process of writing, recording then releasing material but found that we were changing things a lot in our live shows,” says Gonzalez. “So we started playing our new music live first, and then developing it into a full release from there.”
Inspired by fellow Australian acts like Midnight Juggernauts and World’s End Press, Gonzalez says the breakbeat scene has also influenced Tijuana Cartel and is reflected in their tunes.
“Over the years we haven’t had an intention to specifically create music differently to everything else, but it just kind of happened that way. It’s always been completely in-house, with music to artwork to interviews and even ads coming through one of the band members.”
Fresh single ‘Endlessly’is all set to feature on their upcoming dates, and Gonzalez says the experience of a Tijuana show is the reason he keeps at it. “We’ve got about 20 songs that are single-worthy at the moment after locking ourselves away in the studio for months. We may have a few collaborations in the works for this year too, but we’ll keep that under wraps for now.”
Catch Tijuana Cartel at Oxford Art Factory onFriday March 28.
Also appearing alongside John Mayer, Dave Matthews Band, Devendra Banhart, India.Arieand many more at Byron Bay Bluesfest, Thursday April 17 to Monday April 21
