La Chicana was formed in 1996 when Dolores Sola (vocal) and Acho Estol (Guitar, composer, musical director) decided to plunge into tango. From the beginning they affected an avant garde, art rock attitude for the classics, and they developed an original vocabulary for their own compositions, which are rootsy but with a very strong personal take, post-modern and cynical.
Their first album “Ayer hoy era mañana” (1997) won the Unesco Tribune Award. Its successor “Un giro extraño” (2000) was voted record of the year by argentine folklore superstar Leon Gieco. While recording and playing in Buenos Aires they took their tango on tour all around the world: Madrid, San Pablo, Senegal, Brasilia, Bilbao, Pekín, Singapur, Paris, Berlin, London, Hamburgo, Munich, Barcelona, Natal, Salvador, Roma, Shanghai, and more, working in independent concerts and world music festivals (Singapore Arts Festival, Womad Caceres, Expo Zaragoza, Expo Shanghai, La mar de Músicas (Cartagena), Veranos de la Villa (Madrid), Le fils de voix (Paris), etc.).
Their next album, “Tango agazapado” (2003) won the Carlos Gardel Award in the category “Tango new forms” and was recently distinguished by Babelia, the cultural supplement of El Pais newspaper of Spain as one of the best records in the last twenty years.
In 2004 they publish their catalogue in Europe (Galileo m-c) and intensify the touring in Germany, Spain, England and Benelux.
The next cd “Lejos” (2006) was record of the year in Efeeme magazine (Spain) and it spawned a concert DVD filmed in Teatro Ateneo de Buenos Aires.
In 2006 Dolores played a tango singer in “Ciudad en celo” feature film which won the public award in the Mar del Plata Film Festival, and “Best directing debut” in the Valladolid Film Festival. Acho composed the film music which included La Chicana playing live. The Band did concerts at both Film Festivals.
They took part in “Noches y dias de tango” a DVD boxed set of tango concerts for which they won a Grammy Award, shared with other artists.
Acho also published two solo albums: Mi pelicula (2007 – record of the year Efeeme magazine), and “Buenosaurios” (2009), which published in Europe reached number 13 in the World Music Chart Europe, and won a Womex Award (2011). Dolores published her own “Salto mortal” with little known repertoire from the twenties and thirties revived with modern versions and guests like Tata Cedron and Atilio Reynoso; she has played it in Argentina and Brazil.
In 2011 the band stars in the documentary “Tango not dead” along with AdrianaVarela, Susana Rinaldi, Horacio Salgan, Leopoldo Federico, and other tango artists. Later the same year they released “Revolución o picnic” a double album (one cd of classics, from Chinese tangos of the 20s to gipsy traditionals and gems from Argentinian rock with tanguero treatment, the other with Estol´s compositions) that was highly praised by public and press earning a Gardel Award Nomination.
During 2012-2014 the band toured extensively in Argentina and abroad (U.S.A, China, Korea, Colombia, Brazil, Italy), Acho released two solo albums (La calle del desengaño and Perro que ladra y muerde, the latter chosen by The disc Club, as album of the month, April 2014) and Lola performed along with other noted singers (Lidia Borda, Teresa Parodi, Rita Cortese, Liliana Herrero) in a successful show called “The open cage”
Antihéroes y tumbas (2015), their country dark project (as opposed to the next one, it´s lighter side) was highly praised by the press, was nominated with a Gardel Award, and was performed extensively in Buenos Aires (25 concerts), and the rest of Argentina (Rosario, Mar del Plata, Cordoba, San Juan, Esquel, Santa Fe). Some of them were massive concerts like the Independence celebration in Plaza de Mayo, or the Gay Pride Parade in Congress Square.
In early 2015 the Secretary of Culture of Canoas, Brazil, invited La Chicana to produce a record with their musician friends from south Brazil in which to explore all the influences and connections between their music and the band´s. The result was La Pampa grande, an album that would close a diptych with Antiheroes y tumbas, as the brighter, less gothic side of the Pampas. Although being a true La Chicana album for their public, it mingles Estol´s compositions with gaucho milongas, northeastern Brazilian folk, old fashioned “tango campero”, even Brazilian psychedelic rock! Noted musicians from Porto Alegre collaborated: Luiz Carlos Borges on accordion, Vitor Ramil, voice and composition, Arthur de Faria, voice, accordion, piano, composition, Giovanni Berti, precussion, and Bebeto Alves and Antonio Villeroy, who sang but also - as well as all the others – contributed to the record in countless musical encounters and conversations over eighteen years of friendship. La Pampa grande was premiered at the Canoas Jazz Festival on November, 2015.
It´s being released in Buenos Aires in September 2016, with a series of 8 concerts for packed audiences at the mythical Torcuato Tasso venue. Afterwards the band will tour the record around Argentina and outside.
