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Artists:
Bob Bossin
   Songs and Stories of Davy the Punk
CaneFire
Eliana Cuevas
Iskwew Singers
Veda Hille
Tao Ravao and
   Vincent Bucher with
   Jean-Noel Godard

Contact:
Gary Cristall
PO Box 21547
1424 Commercial Dr
Vancouver BC
V5L 5G2

Phone:
1-604-215-9077

Email:
garycristall@telus.net

Music Outside the Box Sampler CD 2009

ELIANA CUEVAS - PRESS
EYE WEEKLY MAGAZINE

SEPTEMBER 23, 2004
VOLUME 13, ISSUE 51
Nuevo wave
ELIANA CUEVAS

BY ERROL NAZARETH
Like Colombian singer/guitarist Diego Marulanda, 24-year-old Venezuela-born singer Eliana Cuevas is battling the perception that Latin music is synonymous with salsa and Shakira. While Marulanda -- who plays no less than 18 instruments and is an expert in Colombian music -- prefers doing a war dance on stereotypes of Latin music in interviews, Cuevas' criticisms are understated. Interestingly, this subtlety is reflected in Ventura, Cuevas' first full-length album, which nicely ties together Venezuelan, Cuban, Brazilian, Peruvian and jazz rhythms. Or as she writes in the disc's liner notes, "If you want to know more about me -- listen to my music. It is as honest as I know how to be and reflects my thoughts and feelings better than I could ever articulate in a bio." After reading this, you could be forgiven for assuming that Cuevas is a reluctant interview.

Thankfully, this isn't the case. Reached by phone in Fredericton, where she and her band performed at the city's Harvest Jazz and Blues Festival, Cuevas speaks passionately about her creative process and musical philosophies.

"I wanted to move away from the typical salsa sound, not because I have anything against it -- I love listening to it and dancing to it -- but it's just not me," she says. "On my first EP [2002's Cohesion], I had a bigger group. I had three horns and a drum set and it was good, but I wanted something more acoustic this time.

"I think that for my voice and the type of songs I write, it works better 'cause I like to focus on the lyric," Cuevas says. "If there's more space, the listener can pay more attention to the words and they won't be overwhelmed by a big sound and intricate arrangements.

Cuevas credits this approach to her prior experience singing in a Brazilian group; the music really resonated with her because "there's a gentleness to it and it matched my personality more. I think that a lot of times people's personalities come through in their music and that's why I wanted something more intimate and simple."
The arrangements she favours perfectly complement this collection of personal songs. And the most personal of these is "Un Nuevo Idioma."

"It's a poem written by my father to my mother," she says. "He wrote it to her before I was born. He was just expressing how much he loves my mother and wished he could create a new language to express that to her." Cuevas is fond of saying she likes simplicity, but this shouldn't be interpreted as a preference for music that doesn't have brains. Veteran bassist George Koller, who plays on Ventura, raves about Cuevas' compositional skills. "She writes all of her material and a lot of it involves advanced harmony and rhythm.

That's very rare for someone her age," he says. "As a musician, it's very satisfying intellectually and rhythmically to play this music because you have jazz harmony and Latin rhythms so your whole body and brain is involved. "She's got a lot going for her."