As 2020 reaches its end, more and more is going on in the world of math rock. Not all have been good news in general, but today we have one of them cheer-up ones for all of you, math rock lovers.
forestar is an Argentinian three-piece from the city of Rosario. The name, according to them, relates to the forest, as a soundrack of it, meaning literally ‘to afforest’.
With two guitars and a drumset, Genaro, Jonathan and Gabriel have a very distinct and technical signature sound. They all met while studying Music Theory in college, and came up with the idea of forming a band. I had a brief talk with Gabriel Schubert, main guitarist, composer and singer of forestar, and he told me how it all started: ‘Genaro and I had this affinity towards math rock, and we liked the idea of starting a project like this in a city where you can’t find none, not even a precedent of it. He had already composed a couple riffs and I offered to produce an album where we both played. Later on, Jonathan was added to the band, because we considered him suitable for the band due to his style and ability’.
Their first self-titled album was released last year independently. ‘We wrote and produced the album by ourselves without having ever played live, on April 2019. The day after the release, we were reached by the guys at anomalía ediciones to be part of the label, and that’s how all this started’.
After listening to forestar, you can immediately notice the jazz influence in their music, and, as Gabriel explains, ‘we even try to join our style with Argentinian folk music, which I like very much’.
Today, they bring to us their second album ‘recuerdos y eso‘, which could be translated to ‘memories and such’. In this new piece, they stuck to the smooth signature sound, with skilled guitar riffs in both sides and a steady and calm drum line.
‘It is an album inspired by the memories each of us have, which re-emerged very strongly during the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite all musical activity has virtually stopped, we wanted to keep making music, so this lockdown was the perfect oppotunity. We came up with a longer and even more complex record’. It took three months to produce, record and mix, so we can tell forestar are hard working musicians.
Argentina has very fine examples of superb musicianship, and forestar is one of them. Give this new album a listen and you will know.
You can listen to all forestar music here, and, if you are eager to hear more acts from Argentina and South America, you can always embark on a trip in our World of Math interactive map.