Gotan Project

Tango's tangled European and African roots got even more twisted in 1999, when electronic musicians Philippe Cohen Solal and Christoph H. Müller (from France and Switzerland, respectively) launched the Gotan Project with Argentina's Eduardo Makaroff. The trio's 2000 single, “Vuelvo al Sur/El Capitalismo Foráneo,” blended tango's sensual syncopation and bandoneon riffs (tracked by Argentinean virtuosos) with samples, beats, and woozy dub production techniques. Gotan’s eccentric ethos came into flower on their 2001 debut, La Revancha del Tango, which contained brooding covers of Gato Barbieri's "Last Tango in Paris" and Frank Zappa's "Chunga's Revenge." It sold more than a million copies and has been heard in movies and TV shows as varied as Mad Men, The Bourne Identity, and Sex and the City. The rootsier Lunático and more orchestral Tango 3.0 followed in 2006 and 2010. In 2011, the threesome celebrated Revancha's 10th anniversary with an album-length remix featuring Fauna, Bomba Estéreo, and other nueva cumbia stars.