Woman’s Place Is in Man Ray

Playing at a four-day rock festival held on the bowl-shaped bottom of an extinct Ecuador volcano gave veteran Argentine pop rock group Man Ray time to slow from promoting its 1997 CD “Ultramar” and ponder the experience.

“The Pululahua crater has a mystical feeling that opens doors to other dimensions,” singer-songwriter Hilda Lizarazu said of the experience last February.

“It was very difficult to get there. It was our first time in Ecuador, and it was amazing,” she recalled after a recent concert at the Hollywood Athletic Club.

The quartet--with co-founder and guitarist Tito Losavio, bassist Pat Coria and drummer Lautaro Cottet--is on a swing through Southern California that includes a performance Sunday at J.C. Fandango in Anaheim.

It was a measure of Man Ray’s growing popularity that the band was invited to play on the stellar bill of 11 bands from across the Americas, including Chilean techno-pop group La Ley and Colombia’s romantic pop fusion band Aterciopelados.

Lizarazu, with Aterciopelados’ Andrea Echeverri, is one of the rare women to front a rock en espanol band, a refreshing change.

With its radio-friendly, highly accessible pop-rock sound, Man Ray hopes soon to break into the U.S. market. The band has been around for 12 years and has released five CDs, including “Popurri,” a best-hits compilation distributed in the United States last year through BMG U.S. Latin.

In between concert dates on the West Coast, the band is recording “Larga Distancia” (Long Distance), scheduled for a June release on EMI Argentina.

While the band took the name of the staunch Surrealist artist and photographer and founding father of the Dada movement, its music is mainstream pop.

“It’s a homage to the multifaceted artist Man Ray, who revolutionized art--above all photography--in the 1930s in New York,” said Lizarazu, who is a professional photographer. “I was always dazzled by his style.”

Lizarazu, who for five years was backup singer for Charly Garcia, Argentina’s granddaddy of rock, called her band’s sound “pop de fin de siglo” (end-of-the-century pop), with “influences that start with the Beatles and go as far as Radiohead.”

At last week’s Hollywood concert, organized by four local Latino magazines, the band showed its pop-star savvy. Losavio’s jazzy arrangements and big guitar solos conversed smoothly with Lizarazu’s melodic voice in songs about love and relationships. She showed some of her musical roots, too, in a stylized version of Chrissie Hynde’s 1984 “Middle of the Road.”

In attendance were some of the who’s who of Latin rock, including team Gustavo Santaolalla and Anibal Kerpel, who produced Cafe Tacuba’s rock en espanol classic “Re.”

Said Kerpel: “Hilda has a very strong voice, and the hooks with Tito’s guitar make them very accessible. They have a very Argentine characteristic with big guitar sound.”

* Man Ray plays Sunday at J.C. Fandango, 1086 N. State College Blvd., Anaheim, 8 p.m. $12. (714) 758-1057.