Sebastian Escofet

Time to catch up

Last year he did three soundtracks & scored an ambitious documentary. Today he dares to release all those albums simultaneously.

Many know him as the keyboard player from the group Estelares but he’s also a composer & producer whose credits includes recordings with Los 7 Delfines, Ulises Butrón, Fabiana Cantilo, Turf & soundtracks such as 21 grams (Gonzales Iñarritu). This flair for film is precisely what he delved into excessively last year while working on the music for not one nor two but three films which -by pure chance- were all directed by women: Cordero de Dios by Lucia Cedrón, Las vidas posibles by Sandra Gugliotta & Lluvia by Paula Hernández, apart from Siberiana, a documentary & multidisciplinary project by Carlos Casas (Barcelona).

“In truth, my music is passed from hand to hand -he admits- but as progressive as you may be, when you’re given a CD-R, it’s not serious thing. This way, with these four albums, the music circulates better, it reaches new people, new challenges arrive & new projects are generated. Everything happened at the same time due to creative matters, although there’s also a situation relating to costs: it’s better to carry out three releases as opposed to one. This also allowed Siberiana to have such a special packaging.

Being so different from one another, these four pieces show the breadth of Sebastian Escofet’s sides. It was already known, but here it’s confirmed that he goes from the traditional song format to the experimental & instrumental. “The creative process -he explains- took place almost entirely in 2007, although some things were finished a month before the premiere. The most pleasant, creative & inspired was Lucía Cedrón’s, maybe because I’ve known her for years & she’s very open. With her, there’s a virtuous circle. On the other hand Sandra & Paula were more indecisive, maybe due to the model of production within Argentine cinema:
the author ends up also being the director, producer & scriptwriter, which grants them liberty to express their opinions and they don’t delegate tasks or trust anyone. They were different and complementary projects because the styles are different.

As for Siberiana it’s also from 2007, put together here & in Europe with Carlos Casas. “The concept was to portray a situation from different points of view. He went to Siberia whilst recording on video & on audio with multiple audio layers because the aim was to make a documentary, an album, a book, a website (see carloscasas.net), concerts & now a DVD.

Currently, Escofet is finishing another soundtrack (for a Colombian film), playing live (when possible, of course) with Estelares & during winter break, his songs for Los Cazurros were heard again on Corrientes street. He doesn’t think it’s all about a record store invasion either, as he says, “All these albums, like the previous ones, are online -he concludes- because the important thing is for them to circulate”.

Do you like listening to soundtracks?

I’m not really a fan of soundtracks because they fall too easily into clichés. But obviously I like great composers such as Mark Isham, Nino Rota, and Hans Zimmer & Dany Elfman.