In 1998, after the relative failure of the Boys From Brazil project, the former singer Rolando Faria from Les Étoiles, producers Philippe Cohen Solal and Christophe H. Muller meet the Argentinian Eduardo Makaroff and decide to try their hand at blending tango with electro. The project was underground at first, and club oriented, but after the plebiscite of the first Maxi singles in their network of European DJs, they decided to take things up a notch and release a CD on their own ¡Ya Basta! label. Makaroff, who moved to France in 1990 and notably conducted the band for the dancers at the Coupole, has a good knowledge of the Parisian community of Argentinian musicians. He convinced the former collaborator of Astor Piazzolla, the pianist Gustavo Beytelmann, the double bass player Fabrizio Fenoglietto and the bandeonist Nini Flores to join them. The cast is completed by the Spanish singer Cristina Vilallonga and the Danish violinist Line Kruse. The repertoire is half original, half scholarly, and you can find there an adaptation of Gato Barbieri’s theme for the Last Tango in Paris movie, a cover of Piazzolla’s and Fernando E. Solanas’ classic Vuelvo Al Sur and even an unexpected but successful reappropriation of Frank Zappa’s Chunga’s Revenge, on which Makaroff repeats the album’s title. The sound, a cocktail of sophisticated dub, mid-tempo electro and elegant acoustic orchestrations, brings an undeniable youth to the Chamamé, Milonga and Tango styles that he adorns. When the album was released in 2001, La Revancha del Tango (Tango’s revenge) spread quickly. Gotan Project’s music is everywhere, in Europe and in the rest of the world, and success is confirmed on stage thanks notably to an original and efficient graphic identity. In Argentina, where the album was pirated before being officially released, many musicians attempt in turn to launch into this understanding between tango and new technologies, but never having quite the same impact. © BM/Qobuz