Guitarist Quique Sinesi is a musical seeker. Since the beginning of his professional career, he’s been pushing past stylistic boundaries, creating a musical idiom that is both distinctly Argentine and distinctly personal.

Elvis Aaron Presley, the King of Rock and Roll, died on 16th August 1977, aged 43, after overdosing on prescription medication. Or so it seemed. There have always been theories about Elvis’ apparent death. Recently, however, a new spin has been put on the old conspiracy. Elvis is definitely alive; there seems to be quite the consensus on that. But he’s also living in Argentina.

Loreta are a group of young musicians who bring a gust of fresh air to the current music scene. A fixture on the porteño underground for more than seven years, their songs blend folklore, cumbia, rock, samba, ska, and a bit of personal flavour, creating an eclectic and original mix.

It’s 1995, and a 22-year-old Argentine jazz guitarist named Ale Demogli is sitting in an office at the Berklee College of Music in Boston. Twelve years later, he will be a pillar of the Argentine scene, a musician who, on acclaimed albums like ‘3.30’ and ‘First,’ blends a reverence for jazz tradition with the unique sounds of his Buenos Aires upbringing. But in that office in Berklee, he’s nothing – a green porteño in a foreign city trying to get a campus job in a language he can barely speak.

Ask even a well-informed foreigner to describe Argentina and you’re likely to hear about tenderloin and tango, and maybe a few famous names like Borges, Maradona, and Gardel. Yet, Argentine rock group Bersuit Vergarabat would direct your focus toward another figure, emblematic of the promise and tragedy that has been Argentina’s lot for the last hundred years: the renowned surgeon René Favaloro.

We make tango with the traditional formation of a typical orchestra from the 1940s, but we don’t dress up as ‘tangueros’, we live and play tango as we feel it now. Our sound is violent and hard but without losing respect for the style.

They are the hottest property in dance music. And ahead of their incredible show at Creamfields ’07 they spoke exclusively with The Argentina Independent. With six studio albums under their belt, two Grammy awards and nine million records sold worldwide, you could be forgiven for thinking that after 20 years on the scene, it’s time for The Chemical Brothers to get out the pipe and slippers. But not just yet.

“Music is biological,” Santiago Vazquez tells me confidently. “It is an abstract biological reality, based on our instincts as humans, rather than cultural influences. But different cultures develop different things in different ways. Music does not come from something learned from outside, although the outside helps you to develop what you already know. These inner instincts are common to everybody.”

If someone asked you about the food and music of Argentina, your first response might have something to do with tango and bife de lomo. Few are familiar with the word peña and the traditional folk music it entails. Of course, tradition is nothing without food, and for those without the time to visit the northern provinces where peña was born, La Peña del Colorado on Güemes brings a taste of northern tradition home to Palermo.

Dub was born in Jamaica during the early 1970s when reggae producers began to experiment with music recorded at their studios. By isolating the bass and percussion parts of reggae songs and removing the instrumentation and vocals, they could put (or ‘dub’) in different instruments or vocals, usually soaked to the brim with effects.