New Wave of Hardcore in Argentina

In a time when the country seems torn between opposing forces, music once again becomes a space of resistance. This manifesto by Ox en Mayo Alto reflects on the revival of fascistoid ideas in Argentina and on how the underground scene —from punk to post-hardcore responds with raw, aggressive, and vital energy. A reading on culture, politics, and sound: action and reaction in musical form.

I

Newton’s Third Law is known as the law of action and reaction.
In general terms, it states that for every force exerted in or upon the world, there exists a reactive or resistant force equal in magnitude and precisely opposite in direction.

Thus, contending forces always come in pairs.

In cultural terms —allowing for distance and a bit of irresponsibility— we might say: for every form of radicalization, there may emerge an opposing radical force seeking to neutralize it.

II

Today, Argentina is experiencing a revival of fascistoid ideas.
These ideas are fueled, fed, and oxygenated by the State and its ministries, yes — but also, and perhaps most importantly, by its upper and middle leadership layers and by grassroots militant structures.

Moreover, history has already shown that it doesn’t take many fascists to produce a government tinged with fascism.
Only a few are needed to turn the ship’s course.

III

At the same time, Argentina is undergoing a crisis of political representation.
In that context, the force which, according to Newton’s Third Law, should rise in opposition to the advance of the alt-right seems absent from traditional political parties.
Where, then, does it reside?

IV

By elevation: it resides in the new Argentine music.
Not in its entirety, of course, but in those bands and musical projects that have become aware of this advance, and consequently have abandoned the neatness of pop mixing and mastering —and of certain urban genres— to respond with another kind of revival: post-punk, punk rock, post-hardcore, post-rock, math-rock.

But then, is it possible to answer institutional violence with a single chord?
Aren’t these two registers so ontologically different that any comparison collapses?

V

Perhaps it lies in the way Freud distinguished between violence and aggressiveness.

Much of the new Argentine musical landscape does not seem violent — that is, it does not organize its discourse perversely, exercising violence merely for the pleasure of doing so.

It seems, rather, aggressive: with clear intent to strike, with raw sounds, guitars drenched in overdrive, mixes and masterings torn open.
Likewise, the same happens with the audience: with the clothes they wear, the signs they raise in venues with hard, lucid slogans, with the mosh pits.

VI

Ultimately, the response that the underground culture is opposing to the revival of fascistoid ideas in Argentina deserves attention.
It is a force in growth and motion: fresh and fast, like all youth.

VIII

Therefore, Ox en Mayo Alto commits itself to contribute to that young force stepping onto the cultural battlefield of Argentina — to forge the aggressive energy, equal in magnitude, that pushes in the opposite direction of the newly built order.

It always has.

Greetings from the end of the world.

Godspeed,
The Sleeping Ox of the High May.