Something's Missing

Today's completely random pick - and why I'll be forever grateful for the 'shuffle' option on my music player - is "BabyRock" Rock, a 2010 single by Clorofila.

I listen to full albums a lot as well as the Dubhed selections that I churn out at an alarming rate. I also listen to a lot of mixes that other supremely talented people - professional and unpaid (never amateur) - have put out there in the blogosphere.

Frequently though, I like to press shuffle and have an hour or so of whatever the music library on my computer or phone decides to fling at me. 

Frequently, it will offer a song or a remix that I haven't heard in a very long time - in some cases, just the once before it was filed away or overwhelmed by the deluge of newly acquired stuff that inevitably follows. 

So, this is a great way of being reminded of a great but overlooked song and will often send me back to the album, EP or wider work of said artist.

I'll 'fess up, I know very little about Clorofila, and have caught up via Discogs to write this post.

Clorofila was the project of Mexican graphic designer Jorge Verdín, initially with pal Fritz Torres. Formed in 1998, Clorofila was a founder member of the Nortec Collective, described on Discogs as 

The term Nortec is a conjunction of 

Norteño ("of" or "from the North") and Techno, 

but mainly describes the collision between 

the music, style and culture of electronic music 

with those of norteño and tambora, 

two popular music genres from the North of Mexico. 

These styles are characterised by their use of 

accordions and double bass (norteño); 

tubas, clarinets, horns and pumping bass drums (tambora) 

and quirky use of percussion and polyrhythmic snare drum rolls (both). 

All of these elements are used to create a sound 

that is very Tijuana. 

As a complement, there's also a 

"Colectivo Visual" 

a group of designers and VJs 

who take care of the visual side of Nortec live shows. 

My introduction was via Ahora Yo A Ti... Una Colección De Remixes Por Panóptica, a 2005 compilation of remixes by Nortec Collective member Panóptica aka Roberto A. Mendoza, which included a rework of the Clorofila song Almada.

Up to now, Almada and "BabyRock" Rock have been the only two Clorofila songs in my collection.

"BabyRock" Rock appears on the 2010 album Corridos Urbanos, labelled as "Nortec Collective Presents: A Collection Of Songs By Clorofila" despite the fact that Jorge had effectively left the collective circa 2007/8.

Unlike Fra Lippo Lippi earlier in the week (sorry, guys!), on hearing Clorofila again, I was inspired to check if Corridos Urbanos was available for purchase on Bandcamp. It is, though on CD only, shipping from the USA. I ended up buying the 13-track digital version from iTunes for £3.99.

If you prefer to dip your toes into the water first, there's the 2014 follow up Ahorita Vengo, a digital snip at five US dollars.

You may have noticed that I referred to Clorofila in the past tense. In looking up the biog info for this post, I discovered that Jorge sadly passed on 16th April 2024, at the age of 59.

A sad end to the story perhaps, but I am grateful that today's random shuffle prompted me to take a trip back into the music that Jorge created.