by RAF KATIGBAK

In 1985, like many American 16-year-olds, Roberto Mendoza loved listening to the radio. Like many Americans, Mendoza would tune in to his favourite late-night program, waiting for the futuristic sounds of new wave acts like Duran Duran and Depeche Mode to beam down into his little ghetto blaster. Like many Americans, Mendoza dreamed of forming a band. The only thing was, Mendoza was not American.

"The radio stations from San Diego had all their antennas in Tijuana," explains Mendoza. "While they said they were out of San Diego, they were actually in Tijuana, so we had the best reception." Mendoza, like most Mexican youth in the '80s, was enraptured by the fresh European electronic sounds, from British labels like 4AD to the industrial EBM movement from Belgium. "I wanted to do a band ever since I got into Cabaret Voltaire. When I saw their videos I said, ‘I want to be like that.'"

Fast-forward 20 years and Mendoza's love for electronic music has never waned. In the late '90s, Mendoza helped found the Nortec Collective, a group of musicians and graphic artists that basically put Mexican electronic music on the map. "We really got fed up with sounding like Europeans. We were influenced by Detroit and breakbeats."

Using elements from norteño and banda music (styles specific to northern Mexico), the Nortec Collective created an abstract, electro-Latin hybrid that not only gave them a distinct sound but also catapulted them onto the global scene.

Chillin' in Chile

Latin America's love affair with European electronic music doesn't begin and end with Mexico. While countries like Argentina and Brazil can boast a slew of top-tier artists and festivals, perhaps no other country has made a bigger bang on the global dancefloor than Chile. "Chile is a country that loves the first-world tendencies," explains La Serena-born Pier Bucci. "I think that's why techno was so easily accepted by people."

Like most Chileans, Bucci, whose projects include Mambotur and Skipsapiens, was first exposed to the party scene in the early '90s when raves arrived in the country. But while DJs opened Chile's ears to the Euro sound, it wasn't until European artists like Uwe Schmidt (aka Atom™, Senior Coconut) and Martin Schopf decided to make their home in Chile that the output of Chilean artists really took off. "Atom™ played an important role for Chilean producers - he was and is a super producer and he showed Latin people how to do Latin electronic music in a European way."

Mundo Latino

Half Swiss, half Chilean, Luciano (né Lucien Nicolet) basically embodies the Euro-Latin connection, with a slew of rhythmically intricate and warmly emotive 12-inches on several name-checked labels (Perlon, Transmat, Mental Groove). Alongside Ricardo Villalobos, Luciano is one of Chile's biggest electronic stars. Like Bucci, he now lives in Berlin, but knows that his home and musical roots will always be in Chile. "One thing about traditional Latin music, like the drumming music from Brazil, batucada, for example, is that if you put patterns from that music on a machine, it's almost like a house record. Now Latinos are starting to create their own sound that's warmer and closer to music from the land. There are still a lot of amazing producers coming from South America - it's not even exploded yet."

Mendoza agrees. "I think that for the first time, our artists are going abroad, releasing records on European, Canadian and American labels. We're travelling a lot and doing a lot of interchange. People from Chile are going to Berlin, Germans are staying in Chile, and Argentineans are doing recordings for Kompakt and Onitor or whatever. In the beginning, a lot of bands and artists copied what was happening in Europe. There wasn't a proposal for really interesting music, but everything is changing. There's a new generation of artists that already have a clear proposal and I think that right now is the time when everyone is showing what they're really made of."

Mendoza and Bucci (as Skipsapiens) join Danieto, Emisor and Andres Bucci at the Just For Laughs Museum on Saturday afternoon, June 4, 3 p.m., $12.50. Sense Club (Luciano and Villalobos) join Monolake and more at Metropolis on Saturday, June 4, 9 p.m., $32.50. Bucci joins Serafin and Stephen Beaupre at the MUTEK edition of Piknic Électronik at Parc Jean-Drapeau on Sunday, June 5, 1 p.m., $5

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