"Damas y caballeros... Los Fundamentalistas del Aire Acondicionado"

Carlos Alberto "Indio" Solari (January 17, 1949-June 5, 2026) was an Argentinean musician born on the city of Paraná, province of Entre Ríos. He was best known for being the lead singer and lyricist of Patricio Rey y sus Redonditos de Ricota.

Solari formed Los Redondos on 1976, alongside guitarist Eduardo "Skay" Beilinson, manager Carmen "La Negra Poli" Policastro and a troupe of musicians and artists. He spent The '80s and The '90s fronting the band that dissolved on 2001. Afterwards, he began a solo career where he played few and far in between dates due to the huge^note his shows began at 50.000 people, while his last show, at the city of Olavarría, drew around 250.000 fans (and sometimes problematic) crowds that he inherited from Los Redondos, in contrast with his former bandmate Skay, who went to play more dates on smaller venues.

Having been diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease several years earlier, he stopped doing shows after the 2017 gig in Olavarría ended up with the death of two fans and several injured people, as well as his advanced age. All of these factors ensured that Indio will never be able again to step into a stage, unless it's in a way that allows him to not be physically there, i.e. holograms. In February 24th. 2023, he made official his retirement from live shows, calling his stint as Indio in general "finished". The last song he recorded was released on March 2025. On June 5, 2026, Indio passed away after his long battle with his illnesses.

In addition to a musician, he also was a filmmaker and a writer. He owned his own recording studio, Luzbola Records, which he used to release his solo career's albums. His solo band is called "Los Fundamentalistas del Aire Acondicionado"^note "The fundamentalists of the conditioned air". Yeah, try not to make sense of that.. Halfway through the same year, he created another band, called "El Mister y los Marsupiales Extintos", a band focused on a more adult lounge-like music, far from the classic rock Solari has been known for, but with more or less the same musicians that accompanied him during "Los Fundamentalistas..." stint.

Solari's music and work provide examples of:

• Album Title Drop: "Chau Mohicano" outright refers the title of Pajaritos, Bravos Muchachitos in its chorus.
• Artist and the Band: Usually, Indio Solari y Los Fundamentalistas del Aire Acondicionado. Afterwards, El Míster y los Marsupiales Extintos.
• Continuity Nod: Several characters from songs of Los Redondos make also an appearance in his solo albums as well:
  • "El Ruiseñor, el Amor y la Muerte", from the eponymous album, references the Gran Lady from the eponymous song in Lobo suelto / Cordero atado.
  • The titular Torito from "Torito es Muerto", from El Perfume de la Tempestad, is Torito Chás Chás, from "¿Por qué será que no me Quiere Dios?", from Porco Rex. He's also referenced in "El que la Seca la Llena", from El Ruiseñor, el Amor y la Muerte.
  • Panasonic, also mentioned in "Torito es Muerto" as an acquaintance of Torito, has an entire song about himself called "Panasonic y el Mundo a sus Pies", from El Ruiseñor, el Amor y la Muerte.
• Cover Version:
  • He covered Andres Calamaro's "El Salmón" for the Cover Album Escúchame Entre el Ruido (Homenaje al Rock Nacional).
  • During one of the early promotional shows for Porco Rex, Solari and his band opened with Manal's "Jugo de Tomate Frío", and closed with Pescado Rabioso's "Post-Crucifixión".
• Darker and Edgier: His solo work is this compared to his output during his time with Patricio Rey y sus Redonditos de Ricota, being an extension of the darker themes and music of Último bondi a Finisterre and Momo Sampler. Musically, Solari surrounded his lyrics with a brass section, keyboards, two drums, three guitars... but Skay's classic, memorable riffs and solos are quite absent. Lyrically, the themes it deals with, sans some exceptions, are even darker: military dictatorship-era Police Brutality ("Pabellón Séptimo (Relato de Horacio)"), illegal immigration ("To Beef or Not To Beef"), capitalism ("Nike es la Cultura"), the aftermath of his musical relationship with Skay ("Amnesia"), airplane-based claustrophobia ("Submarino Soluble") and even, though briefly, suicide ("Chau Mohicano"). There's the occasional weird song such as "El Charro Chino" and "La Pajarita Pechiblanca", but for the most part Solari's work is not for those who expect Los Redondos's classic, direct rock songs.
• The Diss Track: Indio was never shy from blasting people in the lyrics of his former band, let alone his solo career's lyrics. As years went by, Indio's lyrics became less cryptic and more direct, which led to El Ruiseñor, el Amor y la Muerte's Dear Negative Reader tracks "Pinturas de Guerra" and "La Moda no es Vanguardia", which are directed to his haters.
• "Double, Double" Title: "Amok Amok", from Pajaritos, Bravos Muchachitos.
• Driven to Suicide: At one point, the narrator of "Chau Mohicano", from Pajaritos, Bravos Muchachitos, talks about having "sueños de terraza de hospital"^note dreams of hospital ceilings, a direct reference to suicide via jumping from the highest floor of the hospital.
• Drugs Are Bad: "Chau Mohicano", from Pajaritos, Bravos Muchachitos, is about a guy who decides to quit the consumption of drugs, with the song detailing the process, the consequences and the side effects of the decision.
• Fade Out: "¿Acaso las gallinas ponen huevos?" finishes this way, with the band playing the song and repeating "La libertad baila con la locura, ay shananá, ay shananá...".
• Fake-Out Fade-Out: "La Vida es una misión secreta" finishes with most of the band, except the keyboards, in Fade Out. Keyboards end the normal way after some measures.
• I Have Many Names: To the extent of Once an Episode, Solari himself uses an alias every time he records an album:
  • "El Artista Invitado" in El Tesoro de Los Inocentes (Bingo Fuel).
  • "Monsieur Sandoz" in Porco Rex.
  • "Caballo Loco" in El Perfume de la Tempestad.
  • "El Fisgón Ciego" in Pajaritos, Bravos Muchachitos.
  • "Protoplasman" in El Ruiseñor, el Amor y la Muerte.
  • "El Mister" and "El Cantante Timido" in non-album song releases.
• Homage: "El tío Jack" is Indio's tribute to one of his influences, Jack Kerouac. It even outright quotes The Dharma Bums.
• Limited Lyrics Song: "Novedades obsoletas del kamarada amor" weighs in at exactly 300 characters and is composed of three short verses.
• Lyric Video:
  • With Los Fundamentalistas del Aire Acondicionado: "Amar... sanar"
  • With Los Marsupiales Extintos: "Falta tan poco para nada", "Novedades obsoletas del kamarada amor", "Cantar de la mala salud", "Réquiem alegre", "Poco loco", "El muerto Giménez", "Momo revisitada", "¡Ufa! Otro día en el paraíso", "La vida vista desde un motorhome", "Acceso oeste - Exceso oeste" and "Super-Dios vs. el águila guerrera"
• The Odd Song Out: Indio's solo career can be described as "brass rock with keyboards", however, every once in a while, the formula is shaken:
  • Pajaritos, Bravos Muchachitos features the closing song, "La Pajarita Pechiblanca", a scherzo where Solari and his former Los Redondos bandmates cash in the various rumors about Solari's supposed obsession with drugs in a song totally about drugs (but with Solari's cryptic writing style hiding the several drug references). The song is also unique in its lack of guitars.
  • El Ruiseñor, el Amor y la Muerte has "El Callejón de los Milagros", which emulates a hippie bar performance, complete with a fake live audience singing along.
• One-Word Title:
  • Pajaritos, Bravos Muchachitos: "Beemedobleve".
  • El Ruiseñor, el Amor y la Muerte: "Strangerdanger".
  • El Mister y los Marsupiales Extintos: "Poco-Loco".
• Packaged as Other Medium:
  • All of Indio's solo albums (excluding the dual CD/dual DVD package Indio en concierto) look like small books, with the "books" themselves being the album's booklet and the CD being located at the very end of the album.
  • Indio en concierto has a packaging that resembles an old VHS player.
• Precision F-Strike: His solo work is a bit more... unhinged... than his work with Los Redondos, when it comes to profanity, using words such as "cagadero", "culeódromo" (slang for motel) alongside the usual "culo" (ass) and "mierda" (shit), for example.
• Protest Song: "Novedades obsoletas del kamarada amor", done with Los Marsupiales Extintos, is a shorter-lasting modern-day update of ¡Bang! ¡Bang!!... Estás liquidado's closer "Nuestro amo juega al esclavo" as a protest song denouncing foreign occupation of countries in order to extract their resources.
• Seen It All: Invoked on "La Vida es una misión secreta":
  "He visto a nuestra juventud desangrar^note I saw our youth bleed out
  Dieron sus vidas y tampoco alcanzó^note They gave their lives and it still wasn't enough
  La muerte dura mucho tiempo, ¿sabés?^note Death lasts a long time, you know?
  y yo debo cumplir mi misión^note And I must accomplish my mission
  (...)
  He visto muchos años de oscuridad^note I saw lots of years of darkness
  con pesadillas y sin ningún perdón^note with nightmares and no pardon at all
  El trampolín de la celebridad^note The celebrity's springboard
  con canallas que temen a Dios^note with God-fearing scoundrels"
• Self-Deprecation: Not even with Los Marsupiales Extintos Solari deprives himself from the trope: at the end of the Lyric Videos for his songs with Los Marsupiales Extintos, he credits himself as "Producción artística, alguna guitarra de ritmo, keys, voces y bochinches de todo calibre"^note "Artistic production, some rhythm guitar, keys, voices and noises of all caliber".
• Shout-Out:
  • The book-like booklet of El Ruiseñor, el Amor y la Muerte has photos of each and every single one of Indio's major influences: Antonin Artaud, Jacqueline Dupre, Marcel Schwob, Aubrey Beardsley, Billie Holiday, Chet Baker, William Burroughs, Illa Repin, Gustav Klimt, Ken Kesey, Jack Kerouac, Jean Cocteau, Lawrence Durrell, Luis Buñuel, Kurt Vonnegut, Bob Dylan, Allen Ginsberg, Ingmar Bergman, Frank Zappa, Thomas Merton, Joseph Conrad, Dolores Ibarruri, Georges Bataille, John Steinbeck, George Gurdjieff, Leonard Cohen, Werner Herzog, Raymond Roussel, Andrei Tarkovski, Eva Perón, John Lennon, Akira Kurosawa, Alfred Jarry, Norman Mailer, Modest Musorgski, Par Lagerkvist, Kenneth White, Robert Crumb, Richard Wagner, Xul Solar, Hugo Pratt, Walerian Borowczyk, John Mellencamp, Tom Petty, Martina Vlady and Floreal Ruiz.
  • The end of "Canción para un terrorista bonito" references an old saying of Antonio Gramsci: "Lo viejo que no muere y lo nuevo que no nace"^note "The old which doesn't die and the new that isn't yet born", referencing "Lo viejo no termina de morir, lo nuevo no termina de nacer, y en el medio aparecen los monstruos"^note "The old didn't finish dying, the new didn't finish spawning, and the monsters appear in the middle".
• Special Guest: Former Los Redondos bandmates Sergio Dawi, Daniel Fernando "Semilla" Bucciarelli and Walter Sidotti played on "La pajarita pechiblanca", from Pajaritos, Bravos Muchachitos.
• Take That!: Solari's cryptic writing makes it a bit difficult for some people to see it that way, but "La pajarita pechiblanca (Scherzo)" is an actual song about drugs... where Solari and his former Los Redondos bandmates laugh towards those who see everything related to Solari's lyrics as if he's talking about drugs.
• Title Track: El Ruiseñor, el Amor y la Muerte.
• Who Wants to Live Forever?: Indio himself asks this question several times in "De las ventajas de caminar dormida":
  "Nadie vive para siempre. ¿Quien quiere eso? ¡Por dios!"^note "Nobody lives forever. Who wants that? My God!"