Changing face of alt-Latino

New artists seem to come out of the blue. Unfamiliar names pop up more and more on alt-Latino playlists from Los Angeles to Buenos Aires. Unsigned talent keeps jumping into the act.

There’s so much undiscovered music these days that veteran DJ and critic Josh Kun, who’s been monitoring the Latin alternative field for years as a TV and radio host, often finds himself asking in exasperation: “How come I haven’t heard of this?”

Kun, a UC Riverside English professor who also hosts the twice-weekly show “Rocamole” on LATV Live, ventures his own answer. Latin alternative music, that broad hybrid of rock, Latin and world elements, is changing too fast for the industry to keep up.

“People are kind of just taking it into their own hands and putting out their own records,” Kun says.

The creatively anarchic state of alt-Latino music will be among the topics discussed this week by hundreds of artists, promoters and label managers converging on Los Angeles for the fifth annual Latin Alternative Music Conference, which kicked off Wednesday night and continues through Sunday. Sponsored by Cookman International, a North Hollywood-based Latin entertainment company, and hosted by Kun, the conference also features a series of free concerts with top acts from Argentina, Mexico and Colombia.

The shows include some familiar names: singers Ely Guerra and Andrea Echeverri, the latter formerly with Colombia’s Aterciopelados. New names include Argentina’s Bajofondo Tango Club, with its experimental electro-tango, and singer-songwriter Kevin Johansen, with his novel bilingual narratives.

This week’s roster of performances, much improved over last year’s conference lineup, shows that interesting music is still being made within the genre’s established circles. Both Guerra and Echeverri have new albums due out soon. Johansen’s distinctive sophomore record on Sony, “Sur O No Sur,” is nominated for album of the year in the upcoming Latin Grammys. And Gustavo Santaolalla, a top producer with more than three decades in the business, continues to explore new ground through his work with Bajofondo.

Since the music conference was launched five years ago, the big news in the business has been the mainstream success of acts such as Colombia’s Juanes and Mexico’s Julieta Venegas. Both have been around for a decade or more. And so have the names that continue to dominate the field, such as Cafe Tacuba, the Mexico City band whose latest album is also nominated for Latin Grammys in major, not just alternative, categories.

But the question remains: Can the new alt-Latino generation, splintered and independent as it is, ever coalesce to fulfill the promise of its now aging predecessors?

“No one made a big promise except the music itself,” says conference co-founder Tomas Cookman, who manages Chilean rockers La Ley and Mexican pop star Paulina Rubio. “That’s a big reflection of how powerful the music is. People said, ‘Wow, if so much great music is coming out, there has to be more great music to follow.’... But just like with any form of art, there are waves of activity.”

The current state of alt-Latino, says Cookman, is status quo, at least from the business standpoint. Major multinational labels, struggling with an economic downturn, are reluctant to invest what it takes to break new acts, especially in a genre that gets little airplay and needs significant label support.

That doesn’t mean the majors have given up.

Jesus Lopez, Universal Music’s chairman for Latin America and the Iberian Peninsula, sees strong new music bubbling up from the Spanish-speaking world.

“Every time there have been severe economic crises in Latin America, as there are now, new generations of artists appear who reflect those social changes in their lyrics, in their style of writing and composing music,” says Lopez, who signed Venegas to BMG when he was working in Mexico. “And those are the beginnings of what eventually become alternative movements, which in the long run go on to be the mainstream.”

A newcomer from Miami, singer-songwriter JD Natasha, is already getting a big push for her new EMI Latin release, “Imperfecta/Imperfect.” The teenager, represented by the powerful William Morris Agency, has drawn raves for her songwriting and raw rock vocals in Spanish.

But nobody expects the majors to come to the rescue. Today, hopes for continued momentum in the alt-Latino world are riding on the growth of indie labels, such as Miami-based Delanuca. These scrappy outfits are taking up the slack from recession-shocked multinationals that helped establish the genre as rock en espanol during the heady ‘80s and ‘90s.

“Whenever there’s a time of downsizing, there’s a time of opportunity,” says Cookman, who is launching his own label, Nacional Records, with the upcoming release of Echeverri’s solo album. Cookman has also signed Tijuana’s Nortec Collective.

In Argentina, indie label Pop Art has capitalized on the downturn by picking up bands dropped from the Argentine majors, such as Babasonicos, which released last year’s acclaimed “Infame.”

“Pop Art had the album of the year with Babasonicos,” Cookman says. “They’ve had more success with these albums than any of the major labels had with them.... It’s a wonderful vindication.”

Passion makes the difference, he says. Multinationals can be cold about their product. But independent labels tend to believe in the music they’re selling, whether it be punk or salsa or alternative.

Significantly, the music conference kicked off Wednesday night with an Indie Show-Down at the Conga Room. On the bill was B-Side Players, a band to watch from San Diego whose new album, “Movement,” will be released by Surfdog Records next month. Also playing was L.A.’s Yerba Tribe, winners of this year’s conference-sponsored battle of the bands, which drew 500 entries from unsigned hopefuls.

Many more musicians are still out there, still making sacrifices to make alternative music, among them L.A.’s Mezklah, a strikingly original duo of thirtysomething immigrants from Mexico who are starting to garner attention with their “tribal eletronica.”

“We’ve been maturing, and we’ve been developing our sound and our live performances,” says Mezklah’s mesmerizing frontman, Angel Garcia, who’s been playing with guitarist Greg Hernandez for eight years, previously in a band called Circa.

“I feel the right label is out there for us. I know the moment is on its way.”

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Latin music menu

Latin Alternative Music Conference free shows

*7:30 p.m. today: Andrea Echeverri, Ely Guerra, Los Abandoned. Santa Monica Pier.

* 8 p.m. Friday: Bajofondo Tango Club, Nino Astronauta. California Plaza, 350 S. Grand Ave., L.A.

* 8 p.m. Saturday: Kevin Johansen, Superlitio. California Plaza.

Info: www.latinalternative.com

Also playing in town

Who: Mezklah

When: 9 p.m. Saturday

Where: Smokin’ Mirrors, 4928 Hollywood Blvd., L.A.

Price: $10