Vincent Vega's Debut Album

The matrix is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth. Because the truth is inexplicable, puzzling, mystifying. Well, it must be for this fellow who keeps on emailing me, asking why there’s never any guest posts on MusicKO, why it’s always me and the belly of the beast running the show.

OK, look. I did try hiring some folks to write stuff for this blog. I asked those who were interested to submit some capsule reviews, to see what they could do. And someone named Elbo Ludo sent three in. Two were a cut and paste affair, straight from the All Music Guide. The third and final one, now, was a short piece on a Uruguayan artist I’d never heard of in my life. That artist was named Vincent Vega. And that’s what this gentleman came up with:

Vincent Vega (pronunciation:[bjœːɳ ɵlˈveːɵs]): Named after actor Vincent D’Onofrio and Vega (the Spanish cage fighter from the “Street Fighter” franchise) Vincent Vega is a Uruguayan duo that had a chance to rise to prominence when they were commissioned by director Rob Marshall to write a song for the film “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides”. The resulting track (“Huevo Maraca”) could be heard as the end credits were rolling. But since the vast majority of the people in the theaters always left by then, the duo’s pyrotechnical contribution to the film went largely unheeded by audiences, unaware of the credibility of what they would have heard had they stayed around.

So much for having guests authors on MusicKO, then.

But the silver lining (because there’s always one) was that I became really curious on this duo that went by the name of Vincent Vega. Hey, I’m always up for anything that could send people tripping as much as to write a review like the one I just shared with you. And you know what? After having been to a couple of their gigs and getting to know the guys personally, I must say their compositions are not only tasteful but truly resonant.

At its core, Vincent Vega is a duo made up of Matías González and Mauricio Sepúlveda (Dr. Gonzo & Mr. Vega to friends and foes). They’ve been around since 2008, and in November 2009 they released an eponymous album, which you can download for free.

Vincent Vega (Mauricio Sepúlveda & Matías González) At A Recent Gig

Their influences include artists as celebrated as The Beatles, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Big Star and Wilco. And their main Uruguayan touchstone seems to be Eduardo Mateo, one of the seminal artists in the development of popular music in this country. Continue reading →