Festivale de Football Day 5: Costa Rica

"After all it's not that awful. Like the fella says, in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."

According to Orson Welles' Harry Lime, conflict produces great art. And we know this to be true, not just from this quote, but from most of the countries we've looked at so far. Now look at Costa Rica. It was one of the very few to acheive independence from the Spanish with not so much as a gunshot fired, and in 1949, it was the first country in the world to constitutionally abolish it's army. It's avoided the football-based wars of close neighbours El Salvador and Honduras and the coups and corruption of Panama, and locals refer to themselves as ticos, or ticas, suggesting an ideal of a "very friendly, helpful, laid back, unhurried, educated and environmentally aware people, with little worry for deadlines or the "normal" stresses of United States life."

And could I find any decent music? Could I my foot. You'd expect a Carribean-coastlined, Central American, Spanish-speaking state to have at least a bit of unique groove they could export. Big names include José Capmany (no website, nothing on Soulseek) and Cantares (ditto) - Capmany a graduate of Cafe Con Leche (no international impact), Cantares a very public-spirited folk group. The only music of Costa Rica I can find to offer you is by Cantoamérica, and is a fairly substandard Sex & The City-ish salsa-y, rhumba-y piano led ditty. I had to bite the bullet and buy a compilation 'beginners guide to World Music' album recently which features music from every team in the World Cup. For £6.99 you don't expect much, although I've been very impressed with the overall quality. But this one, not so hot.

Cantoamérica - Canciòn del Oficio

What I can do for you, however, is to post a couple of Costa Rica-based tracks of varying quality. First, La Màquina De Hacer Pàjaros - formed by Charly Garcia (of Argentinian protest song fame), they were a progressive/symphonic rock band from Argentina who released two albums in the mid to late 70's.

La Màquina De Hacer Pàjaros - Por Las Calles De Costa Rica (live)

Next up, Italian acoustic guru Peppino D'Agostino - not much to say about this one, except this guy sure can pluck.

Peppino D'Agostino - Costa Rica

And finally, proving again the point we started with that conflict produces the best art, Kristin Hersh, with a track from Sky Motel.

Kristin Hersh - Costa Rica

Buy Costa Rican music
Buy La Màquina De Hacer Pàjaros
Buy Peppino D'Agostino
Buy Kristin Hersh

Tags: Costa Rica; World Cup; Orson Welles; Cantoamerica; La Màquina De Hacer Pàjaros ; Charly Garcia ; Peppino D'Agostino; Kristin Hersh

CIA Factbook: Costa Rica