Kiltro

Kiltro is a trio led by singer-songwriter, guitar player Chris Bowers-Castillo, whose music perfectly encapsulates his background as a person who grew up going back and forth between Colorado, US and Valparaíso, Chile. He takes elements of indie folk and combines them with Nuevo Canción Chilena, a type of Chilean folk music that was popularized in the '60s and '70s by legendary artists like Violeta Parra and Victor Jara. Bowers-Castillo has a knack for melding these elements into a single end to end cohesive style of music without making it feel eclectic at all. The band sets Latin type syncopation against straight indie beats with just enough ambient music effects interspersed to hold the parts together. The combination is not unlike the way Radiohead plays upbeat tunes against a serene background, and the results are equally compelling. Bowers-Castillo alternates between Spanish and English with fluidity, and builds his guitar lines through loops.