As Gil Scott Heron told us, the revolution will not be televised, but if the Franco-Argentinian trio Engine has its way, it will be danced. This coming Thursday, May 5, and Saturday, May 7, the trio—Alejandro Tomás Rodriguez (vocals, acoustic guitar), Robin Gentien (vocals, electric guitar, percussion), and Pierre Lauth-Karson (vocals, harmonica, keyboard, percussion)—will make their final U.S. performances at Fusion’s 708 performance space and Tumbleroot Brewery, respectively, before heading to Paris. There, they will kick off the summer season with a CD release concert for their forthcoming album, Fuego, which they will release under the band’s new name, Quieto.

One motivation for the name change, says Rodriguez, was that “nobody could pronounce, except in the U.S., ‘Engine.’ ” With most of the band’s lyrics in Spanish and with their largest following, to this point, in Europe, South America, and Albuquerque, it made sense to have a name everybody could pronounce.

The name Quieto had initially been considered for the album, but the trio decided that it wasn’t a good fit. They chose Fuego for the album without much debate. “We felt that Quieto was more appropriate for the band name because there is something, in the way we have of thinking commonly, something about being quiet and calm inside in order to let something more firelike go,” says Lauth-Karson.

“We were thinking of this idea of the stillness of a mountain that has fire inside,” Rodriguez adds. “The songs are very fiery, although there are a few songs about quiet, but the lyrics speak about there being a fire inside. The flame inside of us is still burning, but in order to contemplate this fire, one needs to be quiet and still.”

The album offers six new songs that include the band’s hallmarks—poetic imagery, deep grooves that pull from a variety of traditions and genres—cumbia, bossa nova, Cuban tumbao, Andean, Afro-Brazilian rhythms from Bahia, Colombian champeta, and Argentinian rock and pop—strong vocal harmonies, humor, and a determination to look for the light. It’s a stunning, layered studio production, with sonic details that reveal themselves only on successive listenings, including—a first for the band—an array of sounds generated from keyboards and samplers. At the same time, though, the album captures the immediacy and energy of the band’s live performances, making it as well suited for the dance floor as for a private headphone session.

Recorded in France during the pandemic, produced by Sodi Marciszewer (“our Phil Spector, without the problems,” says Lauth-Karson) with assistance from Manuel Aragon, and mastered by Chab Mastering, Fuego includes several new faces, including John Luis Grande (bass) and Marivaldo Paim (drums and percussion)—a powerful rhythmic duo—and Jean Caspa on Moog. Two Albuquerque-based musicians, Josef Altamirano (zampoña and Ecuadorean wind instruments) and Carlos “Kalín” Noboa (panflute and Andean wind instruments) also make signal contributions.

With references to a popular uprising of the rural poor in 1950s Argentina (“Yendo”) and to an indigenous uprising in Peru in the 1780s (“Anda pa dentro”), the album gives voice to the unheard, calls for their recognition, and looks to the possibility of a social structure that has fewer billionaires and more people living in dignity. “ ‘Anda pa Dentro’ is saying, ‘Go inside. There you will find what you need. But if you are shooting us, we will shoot you back,’ ” says Rodriguez.

At the same time, it calls out for a spiritual transformation, urging people to see and honor the inextinguishable in each of us (“Destino”). “La Montaña” talks of an invisible mountain that people are looking for and trying to climb. “This invisible, mysterious mountain, no one speaks about it. Nor your president, in the streets, in the schools, in the universities, economistas, nobody speaks about that,” says Rodriguez. “So surely this is something immaterial and mysterious and metaphorical, but it is apparently existing. So we are putting out this question of What is this mountain for you, for you, for you, for me, for us?

“Everything nowadays is material,” he says, noting “a proliferation of things” and how much of this is wasted. “So we are somehow reversing the attention. Okay, maybe there is something else that is not material that is as important as these material things”—love and friendship, for example.

The first single and video, “Galope Nocturno,” was released May 20, and the second, “Destino,” on June 3—both on the Quieto YouTube channel. The full album will be released on June 10 on all the usual streaming platforms, with CDs available at subsequent concerts.

All of the songs feature the irresistible grooves and the intense, joyful delivery that are characteristic of the trio. There will be dancing this Friday—no way to stop it—and an opportunity to touch the immaterial.

Engine in Concert
Thursday, May 5, 2022, at 7:30 p.m.
Doors at 6:30
at 708
708 1st St. NW
Albuquerque, NM 87102
Tickets: $22 in advance, $25 day of
at Hold My Ticket here and at 505-886-1251

Engine in Concert
Saturday, May 7, 2022, at 7:30 p.m.
Doors at 6:30
at Tumbleroot Brewery and Distillery
2791 Agua Fria
Santa Fe, NM 87507
Tickets: $22 in advance, $25 day of
at Hold My Ticket here and at 505-886-1251

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© 2022 Mel Minter