“Living only costs life,” sang Carlos Alberto Solari, the Indio. The unmistakable voice of the band Patricio Rey y sus Redonditos de Ricota had begun as a murmur in marginal circuits in the late seventies and early eighties, and became an almost religious phenomenon of unavoidable and massive resonance in Argentina and beyond, the wild heart of a popular identity cultivated around his cryptic poetry and his particular melody. That baritone voice, with its unexpected and captivating modulations, will now only be heard in recordings. At 77 years old, Solari, one of the great artists of Argentine rock, as a composer and singer, an icon of the counterculture, died this Friday at his home on the outskirts of Buenos Aires. “The future arrived a long time ago,” the Indio also sang.
For a decade, Solari had been suffering from Parkinson’s disease and had left the stage. “I am not afraid. Curiosity is greater than fear,” he declared when he announced he was ill. Since then, he had withdrawn even further from a public life to which he had always been reluctant, and to which he had only granted, like a rebellious craftsman, his expression as a musician.
On Friday morning, Solari was found unconscious in his home, in an indoor pool. He was discovered by an assistant, and when emergency doctors arrived, they confirmed he had passed away. Since he had a blow to the head, the prosecutor on duty ordered an autopsy. The preliminary report, released on Friday afternoon, specified that due to a hemorrhagic stroke, the musician “died immediately” and that “there was no drowning.”
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Indio Solari was born in the city of Paraná in 1949 and was raised in La Plata, 50 kilometers from the Argentine capital. There, he met guitarist Eduardo Skay Beilinson, with whom he would give birth to Los Redonditos de Ricota around 1976. The band brought forth one of the most influential discographies in Latin America, with a dozen albums: Gulp! (1985), Oktubre (1986), Un baión para el ojo idiota (1988), ¡Bang! ¡Bang! (1989), Lobo suelto, cordero atado (1993), and Luzbelito (1996), among others; with songs that today are part of the collective unconscious of the country and the region. With verses and phrases that conquered the endurance of their memory: “every prisoner is a political prisoner”; “luxury is vulgarity”; “you dream of the bonfire where you are always the firewood”; “when the night is darkest, the day comes in your heart”.
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Towards the end of the 80s, the band had become a symbol of artistic independence and uncontainable appeal, forged outside the domain of major record labels. Their growing audience developed the rituals of a unique idiosyncrasy, “the Ricotera mass,” whose main emblem was perhaps “the biggest pogo in the world,” the massive, almost tribal dance that would erupt during the live performance of songs like Ji Ji Ji.
The flip side of the mass following that accompanied the Redonditos throughout their career was the violence at their concerts. Clashes between their audience and the police became, for many, part of the culture associated with the band. In 1991, a young man who had gone to hear them, Walter Bulacio, was murdered by security agents, a case that is still synonymous with police brutality. The repeated incidents pushed the Redonditos to space out their appearances and take them outside of Buenos Aires, to different places in the country that would call for the pilgrimage of their loyal followers.
The band broke up in 2001, when it had reached the peak of public and critical acclaim. After three years of silence, Solari formed another group, centered on his figure: Los Fundamentalistas del Aire Acondicionado. Under that name, he released five albums, from El tesoro de los inocentes (2004) to El ruiseñor, el amor y la muerte (2018), and starred in various live performances. The last one on stage was in 2017, in the city of Olavarría, and it brought together about 300,000 people. Since that moment, Solari’s participation in concerts has been virtual or through recorded messages.
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Solari made himself an elusive and enigmatic character, a figure who, along with his talent as an artist, cemented the source from which much of his magnetism emanated. But, at the same time, he did not avoid speaking out politically when he considered it necessary. For instance, he questioned the judicial conviction against former president Cristina Kirchner (2007-2015) and even visited her last year at her home, where she remains under house arrest. Regarding the current president, Javier Milei, he was definitive: “I don’t know if he is a madman or a figurehead for an interest. I never thought that a guy with a chainsaw could become president and pass all the filters,” he declared in 2024.
Last month, Solari was honored by the University of Buenos Aires (UBA) with the title of doctor honoris causa. He did not attend the ceremony, but his last public appearance could be seen there, a recorded video where he thanked them for the tribute. After his passing became known, messages of sadness and farewell multiplied on social media and in the media. “Safe travels my dear friend, until we meet again,” wrote Skay Beilinson on his Instagram account. The musician’s family and closest circle announced that they will organize a public farewell this Saturday, with no details yet on the location. Unable and unwilling to wait to show their love, different groups of followers gathered on their own to hold a tribute in the Plaza de Mayo, in the center of Buenos Aires, at dusk this Friday: a multitude of people of different ages and social backgrounds sang and danced to the Indio’s songs with the devotion of the people for their few idols.
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The illness that marked his final years had made death a recurring subject of reflection for Solari. In his autobiography Recuerdos que mienten un poco (Sudamericana, 2019), based on dialogues with writer Marcelo Figueras, the musician outlined how he imagined his departure: “When it comes time for me to go, I would like to do it in the manner of Leonard Cohen: getting up in the middle of a poker game without drawing attention, leaving the cards on the table, without interrupting the game, and with the confidence that my companions will not turn over the cards to guess what I had in my hand. I like that idea because of its austerity: leaving quietly, knowing that your time to lose has arrived and without distracting the rest of the players, who deserve to keep going.” A few lines later, he added: “I only aspire for death to find me alive.”
