I have had the immense pleasure of producing the initial album of the international tango cooperative El Cartel: El Enganche Inicial.
El Cartel started to take shape as a collective in 2020, when Corona shut down most real-world activities. There was the idea of using that time to create a new approach to Argentine tango: an artistic one that questioned all genre limitations. It was not aimed at commercial success or fame, but at artistic expression, learning, and self-realisation. That desire had existed among some of the founders for a long time. There had been attempts before, but in 2020 the time was right.
Since personal meetings were not possible, the initiators began using the digital space to exchange ideas, themes, recordings, and even to play together despite the difficulties. Later, they started sharing tracks that could be mixed into full multi-instrumental pieces.
Because of this way of working, and because there was no need for any fixed commitment, the group quickly grew. It came to include musicians from several countries and from genres far beyond tango. Most of them were bound — legally and/or in terms of time — by other music projects and contracts, regular jobs, family life, and obligations that would have prevented them from formally joining a fixed band.
They came for the exchange, the experimentation, for learning new things, and for the protection the collective provided from commercial demands, conventions, habits, and criticism. Some came simply for the community. Some left with work unfinished. Some paused. Some returned and resumed where they had stopped.
To protect this unique musical laboratory, they created the Manifesto. Because of the professional discretion and informal structure of the project, they called themselves „El Cartel“.
From this core, the project grew in different directions, with different people gathering around different musical themes, instrumental collaborations, and fusion ideas they wanted to explore. Other artists and tango dancers became involved by providing new ideas, contributing lyrics, offering inspiration, and giving feedback.
Some projects diverged completely from tango, only to be drawn back towards it by its integrative power. After all, what song would not gain something from the faint whiff of a tango bandoneón here and there?
But no one was involved in all — or even most — activities anymore. The project became decentralised.
Except for the archive.
The growing collection of individual tracks, mixed recordings, unfinished projects, and beautiful songs remained at its centre. Everyone contributing to the collective could also draw ideas and material from it. And while anyone belonging to the collective could use its ideas, themes, concepts, and inspirations for outside work, the archive itself belongs to the collective.
I happened to know one of the founding artists of El Cartel. It was actually me who — despite his partly Argentine roots — got him interested in tango in all its diversity. Not the dance, as I had originally intended, but the music got to him.
So I had the chance to watch the archive grow and was able to use some of its material as a tango DJ. After years of pleading and begging with the collective to make this fantastic body of work available to a broader public — because nobody was particularly interested in taking on that job — I eventually agreed to do it myself, provided that I had the freedom to make the decisions and set my own timeline.
Over the last few years, I have been sifting through the material, carefully and systematically trying it out as a DJ at milongas, prácticas, and workshops; talking to musicians and joining sessions; trying to understand intentions; and feeding my own ideas for improvements and new songs back into the collective.
From the wide range of material I found — and helped create — I decided to begin publishing a selection of pieces that showed a stronger connection to traditional tango while already displaying the innovative force of El Cartel.
The result is El Enganche Inicial.
It contains some of the oldest songs in the El Cartel archive, but also very recent material that fits right in. It includes tangos, valses, milongas, and candombes — beat-oriented pieces as well as slow, calm, melodic ones. 26 songs, total run time 1h17min. Most of the album is instrumental, but for me the sung pieces are the real pearls of the collection, especially if you have a soft spot for tango canción.
You can buy the album here. Since many of you have followed tis blog and my various tango-related adventures for years, this is my small way of saying thank you: use the coupon code EEI42=9*6ElCartel at checkout before 31 August 2026 and you’ll receive €5 off the album.
If you would like to give something back, please leave a comment telling me what you like and what you don’t like — especially from a dancer’s perspective. It would help and encourage my future production activities.
If you want to hear about future releases, create an account on the page after shopping.
The homepage www.elcartel.band also contains some more songs that may be on future albums.
btw: My DJ / Producer name „El Librillo“ is the translation of my nickname when I was young: „Buchi“.
