El Cachivache Quinteto

Historical background

Founded in the late 2000s, El Cachivache Quinteto made its name under the tango punk label, around guitarist Vito Venturini, bandoneonist Adriano De Vita and bassist Pacha Mendes. The band claims a double lineage: "We come from a generation that suckled more on rock than on tango," Venturini explains, "and when we started out as musicians we were more rockers, but then the tango revival ran us over." Electric guitar, distortion, their own compositions and original arrangements hold the place that fidelity to the repertoire holds elsewhere.

What sets them apart is having held both audiences at once: they draw the interest of those looking for fresh air in tango and of those who prefer to dance anchored in tradition. De Vita describes what had to be forced to get there: one characteristic of tango is growing accustomed to certain ideas, to cataloguing, naming and labelling, and their way of meeting the world of the milonga and playing their own compositions there was to knock against those prejudices - that new music cannot be danced to, and that one should play nothing but the classics. The albums Tango punk vol. 1 (2016) and vol. 2 (2017), then Lujo y fantasía (2018) and Tiempos extraños (2020), mark out those years. The band tours widely outside Argentina and played the WOMEX showcase in Tampere in October 2019.

Source: Andrés Valenzuela, "El Cachivache: 'El resurgir del tango nos llevó puestos'," Página/12, 10 December 2020, https://www.pagina12.com.ar/311177-el-cachivache-el-resurgir-del-tango-nos-llevo-puestos/ ; virtualWOMEX listing "El Cachivache Quinteto," https://www.womex.com/virtual/el_cachivache/ (accessed 31 July 2026).