When it comes to doing interviews, once in a while you engage with someone who touches all the bases of having both a passion and a seemingly boundless wealth of knowledge to share about that passion. They make the job of rooting out the story both easy and incredibly mesmerizing.
Daniel Lofredo Rota (aka Quixosis) is one of these absolutely engaging individuals. A musical artist based in Quito, Ecuador, I first learned of Lofredo Rota through his show Closer to the Sun on Worldwide FM. It just so happened that the episode of his show I listened to featured the artist talking extensively about, and playing music from, an amazing project he had spent the last few years working on: compilations comprising songs from a long-lost Ecuadorian record label named Caife.
The songs were discovered following the passing of Lofredo Rota’s grandfather, Carlos Rota, on hundreds of reel-to-reel tapes buried beneath tons of assorted papers in his grandfather’s office that Lofredo Rota and his cousins were tasked with cleaning out. Identifying the music and artists on the tapes, and digitizing them, became an obsession for Lofredo Rota: “I knew it was going to be long, and I knew it was going to be mine, but I knew it was going to be worth it.”
Fast forward to 2022 and we now have the release of three compilations featuring recordings from those tapes through Honest Jon’s Records: The Paths of Pain, A Heart in Splinters, and Impossible Love Songs from Sixties Quito. In addition, a podcast chronicling Lofredo Rota’s journey with this music is soon to be released.
I’ve long had a fascination with the music of Latin America, particularly the array of artists active in the twentieth century that posed a sort of alternative to the cultural hegemony established through the proliferation of U.S. pop culture across the continent. So when I learned of these compilations, and the sort of insight they provide into Ecuador at that particular moment, I knew I wanted to learn more.
I was able to interview Lofredo Rota back in November and the experience really reaffirmed what it was that made me gravitate towards these recordings. Lofredo Rota has such a boundless knowledge of this music, but it’s also the importance he sees in it — as a means of recapturing collective memory that could have been lost — that really makes his insight special. For Lofredo Rota, it’s not simply about sharing old recordings, but of adding to a process of reasserting his community onto a timeline at a moment when it is easy to feel separated from one’s history.
It’s a process that Lofredo Rota says is important for any historically marginalized group, and I wholeheartedly agree.
As I mention at the beginning of today’s episode, there were some technical difficulties that hampered the interview. While I only really had to cut one question and answer due to this (though it was a good one), I consider the biggest loss of this to not having been able to carry on the interview as more of a conversation. I often had to deliver my question and watch a very choppy and laggy response come through my Hangouts window — catching glimpses of what Lofredo Rota was saying and knowing that I would have loved to engage more because, again, his insight and passion towards this project is infectious.
But, overall, I’m just glad I have what I have to share. As I state at the beginning of the episode, I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Daniel for not just his patience with those issues, but also his offer to record audio on his end for that second half.
Listen to the episode below or check it out on Mixcloud here.
Follow along with Daniel’s music and more updates on this project at his Instagram page @quixosis.
I also highly recommend the fantastic blog series he wrote up for it for Sounds and Colours here.
And I highly encourage purchasing the compilations: The Paths of Pain, A Heart in Splinters, and Impossible Love Songs from Sixties Quito. Just click the title to be taken to the Bandcamp page.
Updated 5/28/2022: Rota’s podcast chronicling this story, entitled Sonido Perdido: CAIFE, was also recently released. You can listen to the first episode below and find the rest on Spotify. English version is soon to come.
Episode 6 Tracklist
“Sangrante Corazon” – Hermanas Mendoza Suasti
“Vaca Lechera” – Conjunto CAIFE
“Ingratitud” – Mendoza Suasti
“Desesperacion” – Benitez y Valencia
“Mi Ultima Ilusion” – Duo Aguayo Huayamabe
“Sendero de Dolor” – Segundo Bautista
“Cotopaxi” – Biluka y Los Canibles
“El Anacu de Mi Guambra” – Biluka y Los Canibles
“Dulce Mirada” – Olga Gutierrez
“Palomita Cuculi” – Gladys Viera
“Chola Cuencana” – Raul Emiliani y Hector Bonilla
“Lejos de Ti” – Los Tres Ases
Mumbler 