Now you can really dance to it

The opening bars of the Bajofondo Tango Club’s “Perfume” sound like a traditional tango. It begins with the smoky, near-masculine growl of Adriana Varela, the foremost tango singer of the last 15 years. A lilting acoustic guitar accompanies her languid reading of the bittersweet lyrics, which are typical of the genre’s darkly erotic vision.

But then Varela’s voice is suddenly coupled with shimmering keyboard effects. And when the inevitable bandoneon, tango’s melancholy sounding, accordion-like instrument, finally comes into the picture, it is backed by a thumping house beat that grows in intensity as the song progresses.

What’s going on here? Is tango pioneer Carlos Gardel turning over in his grave?

Probably not. The Bajofondo Tango Club, which was formed by Los Angeles-based rock en espanol producer Gustavo Santaolalla and Uruguayan guitarist Juan Campodonico, is actually bringing a breath of fresh air to the musty genre with its seamless fusion of electronica and tango. Its self-titled album stands as one of the few essential works in Latin music this year.

“Santaolalla and Campodonico have a keen understanding of the mugre, the grayness and dirt that permeates both Buenos Aires and Montevideo,” Varela says. “And they chose not to hide it. There’s no masks here. That’s why this particular fusion has not ended up sounding pretentious or downright ridiculous.”

The idea for a tango collective came to Santaolalla in the late ‘90s. The producer was listening to an album by Portishead, and some of the British trip-hop group’s soundscapes reminded him of the old tangos that he heard growing up in the suburbs of Buenos Aires.

Santaolalla was quickly seduced by the idea of mixing such an old-fashioned genre with cutting-edge electronica -- partly because it would give him the kind of creative outlet that producing other people’s work could not provide. As the guru of Latin rock, Santaolalla helms a good half-dozen projects a year, working with high-caliber artists such as Cafe Tacuba, Juanes and Molotov.

“A couple of years ago, I realized that I had two options,” Santaolalla says at his Echo Park studio. “The way my life is structured, it was simply impossible to form a band, record an album and tour behind it. So I could altogether abandon my own music-making or invent new ways of expressing my ideas.”

Santaolalla made a list of possible conspirators and invited them to record their own take on the electro-tango concept.

Campodonico was an easy choice. Santaolalla had produced an album by Peyote Asesino, the musician’s former band. Also recruited were Argentine soundtrack composer Emilio Kauderer, Uruguayan singer-songwriter Jorge Drexler, who penned “Perfume,” and other DJs, producers and instrumentalists.

The Uruguay-Argentina connection was no accident. Like many connoisseurs, Santaolalla sees tango as the product of the Rio de la Plata, a river that separates two South American countries infused with the same quirky aesthetic and wistful outlook on life.

Under the unifying vision of Santaolalla and Campodonico, the Bajofondo album boasts a remarkable cohesiveness of spirit. The subtle trip-hop vibe that originally inspired the producer has been displaced in favor of more radical beats that draw equally from the dance-music genres of house and drum-and-bass.

Bajofondo became a cult hit in Argentina and Europe, and after import copies began selling well in L.A. record stores, Universal Latino agreed to release it in the U.S. Since coming out in July, it has sold nearly 8,500 copies, a strong showing for an album in this genre.

Santaolalla is clearly elated by this unexpected success. But his expression of contentment fades as soon as the Gotan Project is mentioned.

The Parisian collective has also revisited tango as an electro-friendly genre but with a more cosmopolitan, less authentic sound, and with more commercial success. Some might even say that Gotan got there first. Its debut album, “La Revancha del Tango” (Tango’s Revenge), was released before the Bajofondo record.

“It’s like a stigma,” he says. “Every time I talk about Bajofondo, Gotan will inevitably come up. I can’t start telling everyone I know that I’ve been working on this stuff for over four years. Besides, it often happens that a concept is floating somewhere in the ether, and two people grab it at the same time. Artists tend to function like radars that way.”

Varela, whose participation in Bajofondo is limited to singing a couple of songs, is more openly dismissive of the competition.

“What they do is more ‘project’ than ‘gotan,’ ” she says. “We’re exactly the opposite. We made a tango record that happens to be electronic.”