Meridian Brothers

A band of one

Meridian Brothers is the project of the Bogotá composer Eblis Álvarez, who began it alone in 1998. There are no brothers in it. The name is a pseudonym from the years when he worked by himself, borrowed, he told Afropop, from the Meridians, a classical guitar quartet he had at university. Álvarez entered the conservatory as a child and studied composition and classical guitar, then moved from classical and jazz guitar towards the electronic pop of the moment. His father came from Colombia's coast and played cumbia, Caribbean montuno and Colombian salsa at home.

The first recordings were a home laboratory for a small audience, passed around on cassette, and Álvarez later said bluntly that the early albums were bad. A scholarship took him to Denmark, where he worked as a computer programmer and as a pianist for dancers, and recorded at night. There he made Meridian Brothers V: El Advenimiento del Castillo Mujer (2005), released by the Bogotá label La Distritofónica, which he calls his first official album and the big turn.

Back in Bogotá

After six years abroad, Álvarez said, he came home and was swept up in the tropical music around him. The solo project became a band of university friends, with María Angélica Valencia on winds, Alejandro Forero on keyboards and electronics, César Quevedo Barrero on bass and Damián Ponce on drums, playing Bogotá bars and festivals. Álvarez still writes and records the music himself and gathers the band to play it live. Meridian Brothers VI (2009) and VII (2011) followed, the latter partly assembled by a computer puzzle that ordered its samples at random.

The band's own bio places it in tropicanibalismo, the Colombian movement that mixes cumbia, vallenato and salsa with electronic and avant-garde music. Álvarez worked across that scene at the same time, in Frente Cumbiero, Ondatrópica and the trio Los Pirañas with Mario Galeano and Pedro Ojeda.

Desesperanza

Desesperanza (2012), whose title means hopelessness, was the breakthrough. Álvarez played every instrument himself at Isaac Newton, his attic studio, and said he took up pure salsa almost as an object, the way Warhol treated Marilyn Monroe. Soundway released it worldwide. Its opener, Guaracha U.F.O. (No Estamos Solos...), sung in an invented extraterrestrial language, was Gilles Peterson's No. 1 track of 2012, and the band's bios date their international recognition to this record. Festivals followed: Roskilde and Trans Musicales in 2013, Paléo and Villette Sonique in 2014, and a fifteen-date tour of France.

Inventions

Salvadora Robot (2014) was, for NPR, an album of happy weirdness, and Los Suicidas (2015) turned to the organ and easy listening. Mauricio Ramírez replaced Ponce on drums in 2016. On ¿Dónde Estás María? (2017), the first record with Álvarez on cello, he travelled from Argentina to Mexico, and The Guardian found it tuneful, clever and enormous fun. Cumbia Siglo XXI (2020) went to the Swiss label Bongo Joe, followed in 2021 by Paz en la Tierra with Conjunto Media Luna and an album with Abelardo Carbonó.

Meridian Brothers & El Grupo Renacimiento (2022) was built around a fake 1970s Bogotá salsa band, complete with a mockumentary. In 2023 the band played globalFEST at Lincoln Center, Big Ears and an NPR Tiny Desk set that opened with Guaracha U.F.O. Mi Latinoamérica Sufre (2024), which Álvarez called an album devoted to the guitar, drew on Congolese soukous and West African highlife. Ruido Tovar (2026), with Mexican Institute of Sound, honours Rigo Tovar-era Mexican synth tropical music and features Beck on three tracks. Jorge Drexler, quoted in El Tiempo, put it simply: Colombia has a genius there.