Daniel Puente Encina

Daniel Puente Encina, singer-songwriter, guitarist, film composer, producer and actor, was born in Santiago de Chile. In Chile he is also known as "Daniel Puente" o "Dani Puente". Genres: Crossover Jazz, Latin Blues, Latin Alternative (Alterlatino), World, Independent. He took his place in musical history by creating a wide variety of musical projects with very different styles as the anti-fascist “Pinochet Boys” (1984–1987) from Santiago de Chile, “Niños Con Bombas” (1994–1999) from Hamburg and “Polvorosa” (2000–2011) from Barcelona. As a teenager, with Pinochet Boys, he offered a mix of new wave and post-punk. In the 90s with Niños Con Bombas he started to fuse Latin, jazz and ska with punk-rock. With Polvorosa, he invented the "Latin-Elektro-Clash". Since he started his solo career he offers a special repertoire of "Furious Latin Soul", "Dirty Boogaloo", "Rebel Tango", "Flamenco Tex Mex" or "Dixie Country Ska" as he calls such creations. His first, anti-fascist and controversial New-Wave-Post-Punk-band, the legendary and notorious los Pinochet Boys, a symbol of the revolution in Chile, has been acknowledged and honoured in various books and documentaries. Due to their irreverent style, their wild, rebellious and explosive performances, the teenage-band would be unofficially forced to leave the country by the Chilean military regime. Daniel travelled through South America (Brazil and Argentina), USA and Europe and after spending time in Spain, UK and The Netherlands finally arrived in Germany. At the end of the 80's Daniel found his inspiration in West Berlin. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, he moved to Hamburg, which resulted in a very successful new band: ”Niños Con Bombas”. For this extraordinary Latin Jazz-Ska-Rock he soon received the ”John Lennon Talent Award” in 1995. With ”Niños con Bombas” he published two albums, ”De Tiempo en el Momento de la Explosión” in 1996 and ”El Niño” in 1997. His songs such as ”Skreamska” or ”Postcard” became popular through worldwide radio airplay and video rotation on ”MTV Music Television”. The band had outstanding tours throughout the USA, South America (90,000 spectators in Bogota, Colombia) and Europe. In Germany, they are particularly known for their successful concerts as the supporting band for ”Einstürzende Neubauten”. In 1997 Daniel became friends with Turkish-German film director Fatih Akin which started a long lasting cooperation as a film composer. Many of his songs such as ”Cocomoon”, ”Nunca Diré”, ”El Amor se demora”, ”Ramona” or ”Not here” are included on the soundtrack of Akin's movies, such as ”Short Sharp Shock”, ”In July”, in which ”Niños Con Bombas” perform the song ”Velocidad” in a cameo, and his multi award-winning film ”Head-On”. Since 2000, after ”Niños Con Bombas” split up at the end of 1999, Daniel started to perform and produce under the name ”Polvorosa” in Barcelona, Cataluña, creating his own new style: ”Latin-Elektro-Clash”, touring with ”Chambao” and ”Ojos de Brujo”. In 2004, Daniel released Polvorosa's album ”Radical Car Dance”. The song ”Behind de mi House” became an international dance floor hit and was included on the compilation album ”Los Videos Mas Espectaculares” (”The Most Spectacular Videos”) by MTV Spain. In 2012, Daniel recorded his first solo album, ”Disparo” (Shot) and pays homage to black rooted music of the three Americas: From R&B to Caribbean Son, from Reggae to Afro-Peruvian music, from Mambo to Bolero. In 2013, he invited New York soul singer Monica Green to take part in the recording of new versions of the tracks ”Lío” and ”Mike Tyson” to give them a touch of ”Motown”. In 2014, Daniel published his vintage, retro-futuristic album "Chocolate con Ají" (Chocolate with chili), the second work launched under his own name, a mix of Rhythm’n Blues and Caribbean beats, featuring a wide variety of styles. In 2015, Daniel Puente Encina played a supporting role as "Sadler" in Maria Schrader's film "Stefan Zweig: Farewell to Europe". In 2016 he presents his new animated music video ”Freire”, created by the team of talented illustrator Cristián Montes Lynch. His music can be heard in films, on television and in advertising. Daniel lived in many different countries such as Chile, Brazil and Argentina, the USA (California), England, The Netherlands, Germany and Spain and finally moved to Barcelona, where he currently lives. He is fluent in Spanish, Portuguese, English and German.