Ruben Rada finished an album with Los Autenticos Decadentes that nobody outside the sessions has heard. Rolling Stone en Espanol's Humphrey Inzillo spoke to Martin "Moska" Lorenzo, the band's singer and percussionist, on August 27, and the account he gave is of a record made among friends and now stranded by the death of one of them.
The shape of it is settled even if the release is not. Ten songs: five written for the project and never issued, and five covers, of which two are Decadentes songs and three are Rada songs redone by the Argentine band. It has no title and no release date, and Lorenzo would say only that it is finished and that he hopes it comes out.
The friendship behind it started in 2019. Rada turned up at the Gran Rex for the band's Unplugged show, sitting in the fifth row on tickets he had bought himself without telling anyone. He came backstage afterwards and got a mock scolding for paying his own way. Before that, Lorenzo says, the two acts had crossed paths on Buquebus crossings and at social events without ever becoming close.
The second turning point was ADN, the triple covers project Los Autenticos Decadentes released between 2021 and 2023. Rada joined the first instalment in 2021 with a version of Ayer te vi. A year later he sent the band a backing track of his own, Jorge Serrano sang on it, and the idea of a full album started there. The recording was done at Lorenzo's own studio.
Rada had said plainly what he thought of the band. In a 2022 Rolling Stone interview he called them the best group in Argentina, praising their authenticity and the fact that they never split, and he tied their feel for candombe back to Alberto Castillo, the tango singer he copied as a boy watching the tablados in Montevideo.
Lorenzo calls the loss enormous for music on both banks of the Rio de la Plata. Rada died at 83, and the unreleased album is now the last piece of work still waiting on a decision. More cross-border collaborations sit on the latin hub, among them Drake's guest turn on Karol G's album.
The facts
- The album holds five unreleased songs and five covers
- Three of the covers are Rada songs performed by the band
- It has no title and no confirmed release date
- The friendship began at a 2019 Gran Rex show in Buenos Aires
- Rada guested on the band's ADN covers project in 2021
- Rada died at 83
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