Charango - in Pop Culture

In Pop Culture

• The Gipsy Kings's CD Pasajero (2006) features a Charango in a few songs—most notably Café. Icelandic folk singer Ólöf Arnalds plays the charango extensively on her award winning debut album Við og Við. Ólöf also played the charango on two tracks on Skúli Sverrisson's Sería album, namely Sungio Eg Gaeti and Sería.

• Andrew Reissiger of the world music group Dromedary features the charango on many songs. Reissiger has introduced the instrument to both the Americana/Folk tradition via Jonathan Byrd's The Sea and The Sky and recently on a Puerto Rican CD with Roy Brown, Tito Auger, and Tao Rodriguez-Seeger called "Que Vaya Bien."

• The Jewish Latin musician Yehuda Glantz frequently performs with a charango. He informs his audience on the live album "Granite" that he plays a charango from his native Argentina.

• Danny Elfman played a charango on the previously unreleased song, "Water," in the Oingo Boingo Farewell concert.

• The electronica group, Morcheeba, has an album entitled Charango (album). The album also features a song called Charango (album), featuring rapper, Pace Won.

• Canadian guitarist Bruce Cockburn features the charango in "Bone in My Ear" off his 1994 "Dart to the Heart" CD.

• Canadian singer songwriter Tanya Nielsen features the Charango sound in her songs "Dreams" and "Escape" in her album "Firefly" 2009.

• Famous film music composer Gustavo Santaolalla, composer for several popular films (including Babel, 21 Grams & The Motorcycle Diaries) makes extensive use of the Charango in many of his compositions.

• honeybird of Italian/US trio "honeybird & the birdies" plays the charango and in their song "Don't Trust the Butcher" sings : "I've got my PJs on and I pick up my charango, 'cause I don't wanna think about you." Their album will be released 24 October 2012 on Trovarobato. The album is produced by Enrico_Gabrielli_(musicista).