Hector Buitrago's Conector a Soundtrack in Search of a Movie Cool Enough to Fit It

Colombian former metal guitarist Hector Buitrago has a sensitive side - probably dozens of them. He and his collaborators are alive to the possibilities of bridging diverse styles such as Colombian alternative/popular music and Tibetan chants, and it's not very clear where one begins and the other ends. His debut album "Conector" is a carefully composed and sentimental album that, unlike so much music today, works from start to finish. It's not a single with a bunch of outtakes taking up space. In fact, my mind has been haunted by the thought that there must be a movie out there, or waiting to be made, that will be worthy of this album as a soundtrack.

Oddly, I was slow to like this album. I had heard the superficially happy "Altisimo" on internet radio and liked it enough to buy the album for my wife. She left it out one day, and I borrowed it. I guess I must have bought it for myself, because I immediately repeated the song a dozen times. And at first, only that one song. The lyrics of "Altisimo" still escape my ear - it's very ethereal and catchy - but it seems to refer to the high Andean cities and ruins, with the refrain "altisimo, blanquisimo" (so high, so white). I'm enjoying the mystery of it for now, but eventually I'll have to know just what the lyrics are about.

Eventually, I explored beyond the song that hooked me and was moved by the swells and shimmies of the uncategorical "Durgamaloka," which incorporates a jagged string section intro, Buddhist chants, and a sort of mournful, wavelike progression of strings that leaves me staring into space, completely transported. This one seems like it's custom-made for scenery of heartbreaking beauty or cinematic footage of dreadful loss, inner turmoil, and an eventual, faint glimpse of hope.

The other mind-capturing track for me so far is "Tonada Tambor," which deserves to be listened to on very high fidelity sound equipment. It devolves from trancey, spacey singing (one voice overlaid, I think - a nice effect) to electronica that's anything but shallow. I recently spent a weekend without the cd, my brain wrapped around this song, trying to reconstruct the order and patterns I heard. It was torture, and oh, so satisfying to listen to the song again for real on Monday morning.

Even the mellow, unmysterious "Musica Somos" is deftly layered, with just the right vocal lead by Buitrago's long-time collaborator Andrea Echeverri. She has just the right amount of lilt in her voice to match the slide guitar. The elements of this relatively simple song come together so balanced and complementary that it's hard not to set my player for repeat there, too.

I feel lucky I stumbled across this genre-defying CD. It's like they used to say of the Beatles - not a bad song on the whole album!