among partygoers through out the State of Guerrero. The band was based in the glitzy city of Acapulco, where they provided the soundtrack to unforgettable nights full of boleros, cumbias and tropical waltzes. With an academic curriculum that would be considered a joke among certain circles, Ruisort was still a child when he graduated from the Juan Sebastian Bach Music Institute.

The diploma offered by the school still hangs in his Mexico City studio today, along with his collection of rare tropical plants and the ashtrays he has gathered from the many sea food restaurants, hotels and dance halls where he has played. Hence his name, an exotic landmark that combines the last name Ruiz and the word resort (in allusion of Hotel Resort). His original name has been lost among the endless pools, beaches and saunas of his childhood and adolescence. His father's name is proof of the glorious musical tradition he inherited. Eleuterio Ruiz Domingo, the creator of the collection entitled Danza A Go-Go in the sixties: an irrelevant and disposable music collection according to official history, but a prized archaeological piece of kitsch. David Toop mentions him in his book Exotica and Joseph Lanza placed him among the top 100 rarities included in his book Elevator Music.

After working with a number of tropical ensembles and his attempts to shine outside the Acapulco music by composing the official theme of the State of Guerrero in 1979 and participating in a tribute album in honour of Gavilondo Soler (who composed children's music in the fifties under the name of Cri-Cri) in 1980, Ruisort arrived in Mexico City for a contract to write the music for a series of Mexican movies for Canal 2. Televisas producer, belonging to the new class; a post nationalist generation of businessmen, that had very little to do with the Ruisort idea of traditional Mexican music. The appointment was made in a place that would mark his life and artistic work in a most profound and radical way: at a rave.
Different from those appointments carried out in hotel room and cafes where Ruisort had usually taken care of business and protocols, it was an immense abandoned lot where an electronic beat with epic tints and robotic effects set the stage for Ruisort's encounter with the executive, who he would never again have anything to do with.

During his stay in Mexico City, Ruisort had a vision that would change his life and artistic work. For the first time, he found himself face to face with the bizarre universe of third world raves and its caustic psychedelia. After this his life would never be the same, and although his love for his father's music: cumbias, cha-cha-cha and samba has never died, Ruisort had arrived to the musical modernity of Kraftwerk, The Orb and, later, Howie B, Kruder & Dorfmeister and Uwe Schmidt. His strange and playful musical talent allowed him to quickly enter the tight knit circle of electronic musicians in Mexico City and establish close friendships with its main representatives. He met Balboa, an obscure character from the electronica mexicana who introduced him to the use of digital technology and who helped him become one of the most interesting and discreet figures of post-lounge electronic dance music in Mexico.

His success and his capacity to take the digital abstraction created by his one-time teacher Balboa -that was trapped in a cold world of experimentalism - to warmer and more jolliness levels, quickly made him one of the most popular figures of avant garde dance music. Fashion shows, private parties and wedding reception for Mexico¹s jet set and powerful politicians are some of the places where Ruisort can be found.

Unlike the nice boys from Nortec, as he likes to calls them, international fame has eluded him. A fact that has not caused him any sleepless nights, since a cloud of glamour surrounds him and an exciting destiny awaits him. The public is Ruisort's priority; women are a divine treasure, the universal object of devotion and the inspiration for the popular poetry contained in his music. Ruisort, in turn, has inspired many Mexican and international musicians to record different version and remixes of his oeuvre. The most recent example is Fussibles (part of the Nortec Collective) drum n bass version of his track Suite Caleta, included in his debut album released by Certificate 18. Another important stop in Ruisort's musical travels is his joint work with Andre Sanchez, former bass player for the Mexican band Titan. The results of this collaboration appear in a deep house and chill out anthology released by Noiselab Records in Mexico City this year.

His first album, Acapulco Now, which had not been published up until a few months ago, is one of the strangest products of the musical imagery surrounding the Mexican tropics, a hint of dandyism that would have never been imagined by XIX century France. Currently, his work has taken him to extremes that, while not necessarily original, bring authentic results and are of a high musical and instrumental standard. Among the invited artists collaborating in his current work (a series of themes by the Police, with merengue, salsa y latin breaks arrangements) we find figures of enormous importance, such as El Gran Fellove, the legendary Salsa Cuban singer, a contemporary of Celia Cruz and Tito Puente. In addition to the aforementioned, he is also currently working with the famous trumpet player Super Ratn, a former member of Perez Prado Orchestra.

The pristine digital percussions of the two-step and international beat of house music are part of the baroque Afro-Latin roots that merge with an amber-coloured Polaroid of an Acapulco sunset, an archetypical scene of the Mexican tropics. The apocalyptic sanctuary of the Mexican third world exotica, so loved by Ruisort, who at this moment can be found with a highball in his hand, walking along the ruins of this tourist paradise, while the smell of burn Coppertone and the sound of the marimba fills the Acapulco bay.

Carlos Prieto, Mexico City, December 2001 English version: Natalia Prez