“When individuals speak about music in English, they consider all types of music. When it is music in Spanish, solely reggaeton drives the dialog,” Figueroa tells New Times.
After Flora and Figueroa met one another at a present hosted by Miami music collective Strange Bass final 12 months, the pair determined to hitch forces to concoct an alternative choice to the present mainstream Latin music — one with unpredictable rhythms, comedic lyrical content material, and, most important to them, a beat that can get listeners shifting on the dance flooring.
The pair had so much in frequent musically. Figueroa had a Colombian background, and Flora moved to Miami together with his household from Venezuela when he was 10. Both knew there was a lot variety in Latin music that they did not hear being represented in Miami.
“We spent the primary 12 months engaged on our chemistry,” Flora says. “Our first mission was to ascertain a musical language. Through classes, we discovered what sort of sound and atmosphere we had been attempting to create. Darwin is extra culturally educated; I’m going by intuition. I’ve the recent contact, however Darwin will get pickier about style. He is aware of every thing about Miami music.”
The pair’s main grievance about reggaeton is how everybody track seemingly makes use of the identical rattling drum sample.
“We love the social gathering vibe from reggaeton, however we need to make every track at the least somewhat totally different,” Figueroa says. “We need to make an alternate Latin scene, which we really feel is missing right here, not like in Central or South America.”
One of their major musical influences is Miami’s digital music madman Otto von Schirach, who makes a speciality of whacky bilingual lyrics with an unpredictable sonic palette. “A number of our songs are very on-brand together with his music,” Flora says. “We assume we’re experimental, and Otto will play one thing again to us, and we’re like, ‘Whoa, that is actually experimental.'”
Oro Fresco’s single “Maconha” originated when von Schirach challenged the duo to create a brand new track for a gig opening up for him. Flora discovered inspiration in a dialog on a enterprise journey to Ohio.
“I work within the restaurant biz and needed to go to Cincinnati,” Flora explains. “People within the business and Cincinnati are drinkers. I used to be extra smoking, and this Brazilian man stated, ‘You like maconha?’ I’d by no means heard that phrase. It was Brazilian Portuguese for weed. I stated, ‘That’s bought to be a track.’ So we made an upbeat, enjoyable Brazilian carnival track.”
Figueroa got here up with the thought for the observe “The Forest” from his dialog on his podcast, Que Bola.
“Mario Alejandro Ariza is a journalist who wrote a guide known as Disposable City about how Miami might be destroyed within the coming a long time if nothing’s performed about local weather change,” he explains. “I wished to discover it not in a tragic Sarah McLachlan method, however with a Miami social gathering vibe.”
Flora and Figueroa not too long ago launched a set of songs remixed by different artists, together with DJ DanceAlone and Allen Blickle, aptly titled Oro Fresco (Remixes).
“We at all times remix our personal music, so we had been excited to listen to what different individuals provide you with,” Figueroa says. “Everyone is an efficient producer on their very own advantage, so it was an honor and nice to listen to different individuals’s interpretations of our songs.”
At the tip of this month, Oro Fresco is headed to Denver for a reside set with the remainder of the Strange Bass crew. “It might be a enjoyable time to experiment with a crowd that I feel could not be extra totally different than what you get in South Florida,” Figueroa says
Before then, the pair is hunkering down within the studio to file new songs set to be launched all year long. The one they’re most enthusiastic about could not be much less much like reggaeton. “It’s known as ‘Amazon.’ It’s going to be sort of like a Sesame Street track,” Figueroa says. “My good friend has a 3-year-old woman who does not know Spanish, so this can be a Spanish track a few bunch of animals within the Amazon having a celebration.”