“Old age is what old people make of it,” said Jorge Strada, founder of Papelnonos, the association that breaks all stereotypes people have about the elderly. Founded in 1989 in Mar del Plata off the back of a paper instrument-making workshop with 15 elderly people, Strada decided to form an orchestra using the instruments and members of the workshop.

Lisandro Aristimuño is a young singer from Viedma, in Río Negro province, Patagonia. At the age of 31, he is releasing his fourth album ‘Las Crónicas del Viento’ and has already toured several times in Europe. Music critics like to compare him to an Argentine version of Radiohead singer, Thom York. The singer has had an unusual career worth knowing to better understand independent music in Argentina.

In the cosy, conspiratorial atmosphere of Café Vínilo, the curl-crowned figure of Alvy Singer mounts a stage bedecked with fairy lights. He is followed by a quirky troupe of instrumentalists, dressed as though they have just raided an eccentric great aunt’s wardrobe. The 1940s outfits and candlelit tables grant the evening a speakeasy feel, and as the band launches into an unusual juxtaposition of brassy big band pomp and heartfelt acoustic ballads, the modern world really does feel 70 years away.

At 1am our van arrives at Castelo das Pedras, one of Rio de Janeiro’s nightclubs located in the favela Rio das Pedras. A local quickly runs through a list of “don’ts” to ensure our safety for the night, sternly prohibiting the consumption of drugs. He informs us that the favela is run by the militia who do not sell drugs, but protection.

I am waiting in an empty café for Federico Escofet, a.k.a Feco, a.k.a Mussa Phelps. I want to talk to him about something known as ‘Asterisco’. But I’m not really sure what Asterisco is. I have ascertained this much: that “Asterisco is a community of independent artists that develop music, art, and photography”, but, apart from lots of arty links to lots of arty people, I’m not really getting much else on Asterisco, per se.

Whether it is love or hate, the very name of cumbia villera seems to evoke strong sentiments in Buenos Aires. Often characterised by the language and everyday realities of the city’s poorest neighbourhoods, cumbia villera represents a window between social classes.

In a pair of stilettos that would turn Sarah Jessica Parker green with envy, the tiny figure of Charo Bogarín struts onto the stage, wearing a dress made of ruffles and false plaits down to her waist. The visual impact is stunning, and only enhanced when the gamine starts singing.

Tonight sees the first venture of the British Council’s ‘Incubator’ project in Argentina, as indie label Transgressive Records brings artists The Young Knives and Johnny Flynn to Niceto. Incubator was launched in 2007 with the aim of bringing together the best of contemporary, cutting-edge musical talent from the UK and Latin America.

To understand Madre Maravilla you need to understand Buenos Aires. Likewise, to understand Buenos Aires, it would help if you understood Madre Maravilla. While the city is unquestionably difficult to pin down or sum up, Madre Maravilla, a four-piece band whose motto is ‘to define is to limit’, is equally difficult to review. But this, of course, is no bad thing.

Sitting in a café watching tourists throng the pedestrianised cobblestones of calle Defensa one Sunday, I noticed three young chaps carry a piano by. So used, was I at this point, to the strange goings-on of San Telmo’s weekly market, I barely batted an eyelid.