In case you were wondering where did I get that amazing remix of El General's "Mamita Apretadita" that plays at the end ofLinyerismo Episode II, well here is your mystery revealed. Venezuelan mash-up artist Pedro Infame has just released for free online distribution his first official compilation of remixes aptly titled Latinchrist Superstar. It includes the aforementioned mash-up, which he had shared with me while ago, as well as other gems worth checking out. It also comes with a cover picture of a transvestite Hugo Chavez. So you get the idea, this guy doesn't respect any son of God or political figure, so don't expect him to pay respect to MC Hammer, Lenny Kravitz or the BeastieBoys. He just doesn't give a fuck and destroy their songs with results that... well they might not be all that awesome, but they definitely are all quite interesting. Not bad for a guy coming from the telenovelas country that only exports cheesy-ass music.
If you are into Zizek and Argentinean new school cumbia, you must already be more than familiar with Diego Bulacio, A.K.A. Villa Diamante. He was one of the founders and first DJ's of Zizek club in Buenos Aires so he's regarded by many as one of the pineers of that scene. I, myself, discovered with excitement this whole new scene a few years ago by a comment I found online about his first series of mash-ups so I have to thank him for the heads-up. Now Villa Diamante is releasing for free download a huge collection of his past work, Empacho Digital. Many of these mash-ups have been published on several blogs during the past months, so if you've been following him, like I've been, you'll find that you already have most of the tracks. I don't really know if these are new versions or remastered versions with a better sound, but I hope so, some of the originals didn't sound very good, so I'm downloading them again anyway. Now Empacho Digital is divided in three virtual albums, with a total of 42 tracks and only very few of them have any cumbia. You'll find lots of different genres here, mashed up together in a way that's very respectful (maybe too much) to the originals in keeping the forms and structures of the songs and adding very little extra condiments. Many of the mixes are fun to listen to, specially if you know the originals beforehand. Only a couple are dancefloor-oriented. Some of the raps are disappointing when the MC's go off beat. But still, it's a great collection with such a variety of styles that you'll definitely find some you'll like and since they are free, you don't waste anything by giving them a chance. Big props to the art designer, I loved that cover! Download here.
There was a track from these guys in Zizek's second comp so I assumed they were from Buenos Aires. One of the members actually is, but they both live in the Bay Area, CA. I had no idea we were almost neighbors until yesterday when we randomly ended up seating at the same table during a wedding reception (a wedding where cumbia was danced as a ritual during the ceremony!). We started talking and we realized we had plenty of people we knew in common (besides the recently married couple), and we've been at many of the same events but we've never actually met, which is odd in a city like San Francisco where we constantly get that feeling that we all know each other. Anyway, Lulacuza are actually Alejandra Ortiz and Luis Maurette, Colombian and Argentinean respectively, and they make beautiful music. She sings, he makes noises and push buttons and the results are pretty amazing. Nobody would dare qualify them as cumbia artists but they certainly do have some clear cumbia influences in their melodies and rhythm (among other Latin American folk sounds) and even though they approach it from the techno point of view, they do not focus on making people dance. So if you're looking for dancefloor-packing hip-shaking beats with a straight-forward güiro sound and/or cut-and-paste DJ-oriented cumbia tracks, this is probably not for you. Lulacruza is just plain beautiful music with a refined minimalist techno feel to it that makes it more sophisticated and "artsy" if you may (but not necessarily pretentious), sort of what other underrepresented Zizek artists like Gaby Kerpel and Alex Krygier are doing, but overall they remind me a lot of Juana Molina, and I mean that as a compliment. They have a couple of albums out and this recent 8-tracks EP with remixes by neo-cumbia luminaries like Kerpel himself, Colombia's Pernett and Pasternak, who we know from Bersa Discos releases. To add to their extreme coolness, the EP is sold online at whatever price you wanna pay (starting from zero) and they give you many options regarding the level of compression of the tracks so you can actually get them in super high quality if you want (and/or have enough room in your drive). Man, I can't wait to start fucking around with their music and blend it into my next Linyerismo episode! Download Here
Today was one of those days that when, in anticipation for a gig (Mestiza!) I spent hours and hours downloading tons of music. I lost count of how many records I downloaded and of course, I don't have time to listen to them all, I just listen to the first 10 or 20 seconds of each song and if I like the beat, I keep it and add it to my play list, if not, directly to my trash can. Well, then I ran into this free EP on some blog and I was like whoa! how come I never heard this guys before? I thought I knew all the neo-cumbia artists coming out from Argentina, but apparently that's not the case. This was love at first play! I wanted to skip the songs after ten seconds because I had like three more albums to listen and so little time, but I just counldn't I had to listen to the full tracks of the whole EP. However this is not sophisticated underground electronic cut-and-paste cumbia in the Zizek style, it's a lot more glossy pop but still I loved all the songs! I want more, please!!! Download Here
I have to admit, I have a love/hate relationship with these guys and that translates onto most of their work, I love half of it while I hate the other half. On one side, yeah, I have to give it to them for being the only cool band to ever come out of Venezuela. At the same time, Venezuela is a weird country where people actually enjoy merengue-hip-hop, still, in a totally non-ironic way, so it must not be too hard to be the coolest amongst so much cheesiness. The thing is, Amigos have been living in New York for like ten years now so they don’t really represent Venezuela much anymore. Now they are the mandatory Latino party band that you have to see at EVERY music festival there is in the US. They are fun to see live and they always drag a crowd of hot women that you will never see at any other Latin Alternative shows, so that’s cool. But the idea that whenever a concert promoter tries to fill a festival line-up and eventually gets to the part when he wonders, “hey we should have some Latinos here too, who could it be?” and he can only come up with ONE band, always the same one, that’s just depressing dude. Then again, I can’t hate Amigos for what it’s not their fault. They have no control over their home-country’s lack of taste and the concert promoters’ lack of imagination. So why do I really hate them? Because they keep insisting on a disco-funk revival that was cool back in 1998? Because all their songs are exclusively about sex from a horny-frat-boy perspective? Because when they sing in English they’re horrible? No, I hate them because they don’t give me more of what I love about them. Yeah, sounds like a contradiction, but let me explain: Los Amigos Invisibles seem to have a very creative collage-aesthetics side that definitely comes from a DJ’s brain. But they express this exclusively in the short skits between songs, some of their instrumental tracks, and their amazing live mash-ups. I love all that, but on their albums that type of content is relegated to the filler category, while the highlights are always those redundant corny songs that stick to a fixed formula. I’d love if they got rid of the obnoxious singer and just release a DJ oriented album with tracks full of those little brilliant bits, like the dildo commercial on this new CD, properly named Commercial (and released by the only US-based Latin music label that matters, Nacional Records). But then again, if they did that, it’d be just me at their shows and none of the hot Latinas who go only because the singer is oh-so-handsome. So they are probably right at giving them priority over the eccentric requests of this particular hater. Anyway, there are at least four tracks from Commercial I’ll be keeping on my play-list to probably include on my future DJ sets -definitely the instrumental afro-funk “Burrundanga”- maybe more.
Bersa Discos is the first neo-cumbia specialized record label and this is their fifth release and probably their best one. The previous four were mostly compilations of up and coming artists like DJ Negro, Panik DJ and Bersa's own Oro11. For this one however, they dedicated the whole 12 inches of the vinyl to the biggest name in neo-cumbia: Toy Selectah. My biggest regret right now is having finished my Linyerismo Episode II mix-set before getting this record. Some of these tracks would've worked perfectly for the last five or ten minutes where I was struggling to find what else to play. But anyway, it already had enough Toy Selectah-if there could be such a thing. Similarly to what Toy already did for his Mad Decent digital release of last month, on this one the former Control Machete producer goes way beyond the standard limitations of traditional cumbia and breaks in new territory in some weird futuristic space that he calls "ravertón". It still has the constant cumbiagüiro sound somewhere in there, but the BPM's are more like in the range of the 130 instead of the classic average 90. So I don't think this can qualify as cumbia anymore even though many of the main elements are present there. Toy likes to fill his mixes with infinite layers upon layers of small details and his tracks rarely take breaks or calm down, they are a constant on going inferno of crazy dancing where cumbia blends with reggaetón and retro-acid-rave (he's been using the clichedLynn Collins' "Think" sample from the hip-house era a little too much if you ask me). The six tracks included in this EP are amazing but my favorite is his take on DJ Negro's "MundoQuerido" which is the best set-opening track possible. Right now the record is only available in vinyl format on Turntable Lab and I recommend you get a copy before it sells out, which will happen, no doubt, since this will potentially turn into a collective item. Soon they will also release it for digital download. Meanwhile you can listen to their promotional track here.
Recently I've been thinking a lot about how unfair I've been to Colombian music on this blog. I've been writing quite a lot about new school cumbia, but focusing mainly in the Argentinean and Mexican scenes, I guess because they are closer to me and because they are the ones who got more exposure and media-attention (thanks mainly to Zizek and Toy Selectah, respectively). The thing is, cumbia is a traditional Colombian music genre and we all know that. Nowadays we're getting neo-cumbia releases from totally random places like Australia, Netherlands, and Switzerland but I bet there are a lot more interesting ones in cumbia's birthplace that we are not just paying enough attention too. I mean, we all know of Richard Blair and his worldwide-successfullSidestepper project that released some very interesting neo-cumbia track like ten years ago, way before the crossover craze. But besides that guy, who's actually Brittish, I know there must be many other young Colombians experimenting with this contagious beat. The thing is, Colombians have a completely different relationship with cumbia than fans in countries like Argentina, México, El Salvador and Perú. For Colombians cumbia is a deeply-rooted folk music style of African slaves descendants. They have a certain respect to the genre that we don't particularly share. In the rest of the continent, cumbia evolved into a whole different thing and is generally perceived as a low-brow, kitschy, cheesy music listened only by the undereducated working classes. So when cool urban kids in BuenosAires or México City approach cumbia as a source of sampling material for their productions, they do it with a sort of tongue-in-cheek kind of humor. Colombians don't see it that way and that's why the neo-cumbia coming from Colombia sounds so different. It's fun to listen, and fun to dance to, but they're not necessarily making fun of the genre itself. A couple of days ago the French mestizo artist SargentoGarcía released a very interesting five song EP called Cumbia Muffin where five different neo-cumbia artists from Colombia make remixes of his songs, which were not all particularly cumbias in their original format. The results are quite impressive. Among the artists who work on the remixes is BombaEstéreo which I predict, will be in everybody's best-of lists at the end of the year. Their album Estalla (out on Nacional Records) is amazing and the song "Fuego" (featured in Linyerismo Episode I) might be the first neo-cumbia hit with mainstream appeal, check out the video that just came out too and fall in love with their singer like I did and like everybody did during their visit to SXSW. Another of the artists involved in that project is Pernett, who I honestly didn't know anything about and I regret it. They have a couple of albums out already and in their first one, called CumbiaGaláctica (!!!!), they made a cumbia cover of "La Abuela" one of the first successful rap songs in Spanish. I just wish I knew about them before because I would've totally include them in Linyerismo Episode II. The Colombians that I did include in Linyerismo Episode II were PalenkeSoultribe, which readers of this blog are already very familiar with and this other guys called Systema Solar playing this amazing song:
I bet that there must be tons of others like them doing amazing experiments with cumbia down in Colombia that are waiting to be discovered. I'm eager for more.
If you were wondering why I wasn't posting for the last few weeks, well here is the answer, I was busy working on the sequel for my Linyerismo mixtape. It is not really a mixtape per se, because there's no tape involved of course, but if there was a cassette this would be the other side to that same cassette. Episode II starts right were Episode I left, that is at 110 BPM, and takes the listener in a journey further away from the traditional cumbia tempo into the lands of electro in 130BPM. So, even though cumbia is still present throughout the mix, there are plenty of other eclectic condiments to this salad. Now for all you DJ's and turntablism connoiseurs wondering how Linyerismo was recorded let me tell you that the equipment used was a Macbook with Torq Connective, a Technics 1200MK2 turntable, a Denon two channel mixer and a Trigger Finger by M-Audio. Even though it might seem at times that it was edited in a loop sequencing software like Garage Band or Ableton Live, all the mixes were recorded in real time, with two channels only. Of course, it was recorded in ten million takes, so every time you hear more than two tracks playing at once (which is almost constantly) it means that I mixed two songs first, recorded it, then played it again and added a third one on top, and so on. That's why it took me so long. And that's also why there's little bits where I come in slightly out of tempo.
Anyway, you can download Linyerismo Episode II for free - HERE
Or you can listen to it here and peep into the playlist (there's still a few tracks I need to identify)
So far this blog has only covered current stuff, so this post is going to be the first exception to that rule. Recently a guy I've never personally met from the old country contacted me saying that he wanted to unearth a long forgotten relic from my past and publish it online. I thought about it first and then I said, why not? I've done waaaaaay more embarrassing stuff that can be found online so why not posting that EP I recorded ten years ago under the alter-ego of Mangaka, when I was still trying to be a rapper? So I went through my old files, found it and zipped it and sent it to him and today he posted it on his blog. And then I thought, oh, well, since it's already there, it should be here too, right? So here it is, now you too can download it and make fun of my lack of microphone skills.
The story goes something like this: it was back in 1999 and I was done publishing my hip-hop magazine after three years and I was trying to come out with something different. I tried rapping many times before, and I was part of plenty of groups as a teenager which fortunately didn't leave any recorded audio behind. At that time I was very much involved with the entourage of the rap super-group La Organización and I knew their debut album would change once and for all Argentinean hip-hop but they were taking way too long to put out a record and since nobody else was releasing any interesting new-school rap at the moment, I decided to do it myself and I dragged with me a whole new breed or local talents. Amongst the many guests is Apolo Rodas (now known as Apolo Novax from the group Koxmoz) in a track that became sort of like the single of that EP. Apolo would become one of the hottest rappers in Latin America but his first actual release was his short collaboration in my song Lección Número Uno (many years later with Koxmoz he would release a song called Lección Número Dos) so even though the CD sucked balls and sold like 50 copies, it does have some sort of historical relevance. Also it was in that same track that Apolo dissed Sindicato Argentino del Hip Hop for the first recorded time, hence it was the beginning of a decade-long feud between these artists. Later in 2000 Apolo became a recurrent intruder in my house and on my computer we produced most of the instrumentals for La Diferencia, which was going to be the debut album by La Organización. La Organización, also known as La Oz, consisted of three MC's: Mustafá Yoda (now a successful solo artist) Apolo Rodas and Interceptor, now known as Chili Parker of Koxmoz. In 2001 I left Argentina without ever finishing the production of those demos and a couple of months later Mustafá abandoned the project so the tracks were never finished, nor they were properly mastered. Still they decided to release them anyway as a self-bootleg and recently it was also unearthed from the vaults of the forgotten by the same archeological blogger. So if you liked Koxmoz and/or Mustafá Yoda and you wanna know what were they doing before they became sort of famous, now you can download it here too!
After a crazy weekend packed with amazing shows (Zizek, M.I.S., Bajofondo, Cypress...) my expectations were low for Buraka even though I've already seen them live last year and they rocked. I just thought nothing else could surprise me after that unexpected Bajofondo surprise. I was so wrong. BurakaSomSistema's show was like going to an aerobics class at a sauna during Burning Man. It just happened to be the hottest day of the year, so far, over here and somehow BSS managed to make it even hotter. Not only with their super-up-tempo beats that never go below 130 BPM but also by improving notoriously their stage performance by adding a live drummer an a singer/dancer girl names Blaya who's simply TOO HOT TO BE HUMAN. W-O-W! I saw BSS last year for their Tormenta Tropical performance and they blew my mind but this was way way way better. I was right next to the stage and it felt like being at a rave and a grindcore metal concert at the same time. It was a non-stop moshpit of dancers in fluo clothes sweating their asses off and every time Blaya would come on stage, things would dial up to surreal levels of wildness. Kuduro is definitely the new favela funk. BurakaSomSistema is the best thing to ever come out of Portugal since... Brazil!
Yesterday was stoner's national day and even though I do not consider myself a stoner, I celebrated it going to a Cypress Hill concert. Now I've never been a fan of Cypress, I barely like a couple of tracks from their first two records and that's it, but I've seen them live 5 times already. In fact my debut as a hip-hop journalist was interviewing their percussionist Eric Bobo back in Buenos Aires in 1996. I interviewed their percussionist, instead of the MC's or DJ, because he also happened to be the Beastie Boys percussionist during their Ill Communication era. Last night's show started with a performance by their allys Pscycho Realm which was just average but I've never seen them before so it was cool. Cypress' show was the same stoner-pleasing show they been doing for the past 15 years minus the inflatable Buda, the huge bong and DJ Muggs. Yup, they didn't have DJ Muggs. Total bummer. In his place they had some Mexican guy name Julio who told us backstage that he was Cypress DJ before Muggs. Whatever, I like Muggs, specially his side projects like the one with GZA. So after the mediocre Cypress show we went to a bar where Eric Bobo was doing a promotional record release party for his solo album, Meeting of the Minds, which came out a couple of months ago through Nacional Records! I don't know why or how it happened because I usually review all Nacional Records releases on this blog, but I skipped that one. It has a neo-cumbia track with Toy Selectah on it and I've been playing it for a while, but I haven't listened to the rest of the album yet and after his incredible show last night I really want to! (Let's see if my Nacional friends read this and send me a copy...) Anyway, I don't think his album can match the excitement of his live performance from last night where he improvised an amazing set with Beat Junkies and The Visionaries, DJ Rhettmatic. WOW! They'd be doing back and forth call and responce between scratch and percussion and then they did a mind blowing syncronized routine with Rhettmatic doing backspin with the intro of "Apache" by Sugar Hill Gang. I wish I had my camera and I got that on video. My friend did, I'll see if I can get her to share with us and post it here. Happy belated 420 to y'all!
I've been to thousands of backstage after-shows of all types of music but I've never seen anything like this. Last night Bajofondo gave the last show of their Mar Dulce Tour in San Francisco. As usual, their live performance was mind-blowing, unbelievable. So much energy, so much emotions! But you know, they are putting a show, they are performing, they are getting paid for it, so you as part of the audience can't really tell if they are actually that cool or they're just pretending. Well, last night I was appointed to do an interview with Bajofondo's leader and multiple-Grammy-and-Oscars-winner Gustavo Santaolalla after their show and that was almost an impossible task. Right in the middle of an answer to my question the other members of the band started chanting like soccer hoolingans and Gustavo join them right after. The results can be appreciated in this video I took with my photo camera, so expect low quality image and sound, but I think it's still quite compelling. There you can really appreciate the spirit and the actual energy of this people when they are not in front of a crowd, they are just having fun and enjoying what they do the best, great fucking music! Now I've been a huge fan of Gotan Project since their very beginnings and I even contributed with their second album, Lunático, hooking them up with Koxmoz for that amazing collaboration "Mi Confesión". I've been to plenty of Gotan shows and I've also been backstage with them, and I've never seen anything comparable to this. When Gustavo and the gang started chanting "Gotan you make me laugh, I went to see your show and it seemed like mass" I instantly converted to a Bajofondo fan. Watch this video and convert you too.
Back when I did that silly 2009 predictions post in January, I should've totally guessed this one, but I didn't, which means as a psychic I suck. Big time. Nacional Records, the best (and only decent) Latin music record label in the whole United States will be releasing Zizek Collective albums, starting with this one, and that, my friends, is the biggest piece of news of 2009, so far. I actually wondered many times why Nacional wasn't jumping in the neo-cumbia craze and I sort of new that eventually they'd do it but never in a million years did I imagine they would associate with Argentina's ZZK Records and release their impressive catalogue for the US market (or at least some of it). I found out about it through the guys of Fauna a couple of weeks ago, but only as a rumor and I confirmed it last night at Zizek's San Francisco show (the third one in two years!) when Zizek's founder and resident DJ El G gave me a copy of this new compilation CD (thanks!) in its Argentine edition which includes one track more than the US edition to be released by Nacional, hopefully soon. ZZK Sound Vol. 1 was probably the best album of 2008 and the one I played the most at my DJ sets so I assume Vol. 2 will be at least equally relevant. I've only listened to it once so don't expect a very brainy review here, I don't do that type of shit on this site, you'll probably read one of those soon on one of the various sites that pay me. What I can point out as different from its predecesor is that this new volume does not have the subtitle Cumbia Digital, in fact it doesn't have any subtitle at all. Cumbia is still present, but in a much less obvious way. The sound in general is way more electronic and futuristic (can we already start talking about post-neo-cumbia?) and it also has less catchy hooks. There's also less rap, which's a bummer because I really digged those Maestro and Princesa tracks from the first comp. There's however the Zonora Point rap which sounds Chilean, and I guess that's where they are from, and that's the only track I've been already playing previously to these release (it's actually included in my Linyerismo mix, hidden somewhere among all that mess). All the rest are new stuff. Many by artists that I'm not familiar with like Lulacruza, Sonido del Príncipe, Arcade and Petrona Martínez. Some by artists that all neo-cumbia aficionados should be already familiar with like our local hero Oro11, Fauna, Frikstailers, Chancha Vía Circuito, Daleduro, Marcelo Fabián, Axel K. and El Trip Selector. The biggest absence here is El Hijo De La Cumbia who last year provided the neo-cumbia ultimate anthem, "La Mara Tomasa" but is now signed to DJ Rapture's label. Anyway, like I said, I've only listened to it once so I still don't have any definitive opinion. What I can tell you is that all those 19 tracks are already loaded on my playlist and I'll probably be playing some of them tonight at the M.I.S. show. So come and check it out or go to Coachella and for your last chance to see Zizek Collective in the US before they go on tour to Mexico... or wait for the Nacional release. Your choice.
I was about to start having sex when I realized the album was done downloading and I said to myself, why not? And pushed play. Now I'm not one of those cheesy motherfuckers that play Barry White and Marvin Gaye as background music to "get it on". My original idea was more like "let's see if I can multitask and write a record review, in my head at least, while I do the thing" and the first song that came out was "Africa" which has a pretty good up-tempo beat so I liked it and she liked it and we were doing it to the rhythm of those tribal drums so I decided to leave it playing. Then this song came out and she looked at me like "what the fuck??" and at the moment the beat kicked in and the dude started pseudo-rapping in a PM Dawn flow I couldn't help it and I started laughing my ass off. I was instantly transported back to 1991 and that was probably the unsexiest time in my life, being a total nerd teenager making mix-tapes in my room with songs recorded from the radio. It totally ruined the afternoon sex mood. Anyway, after a few other mellow tracks I had to press stop. Up-beat and campy can be pretty cool but artsy-fartsy mellow makes me wanna stick my thumbs into my eyeballs and choke on my vomit. I'll definitely keep the "Africa" and "Dance" songs because I might play them in my future sets (I said the same about "Hey, culito" when I got it a year ago but I still haven't found a proper situation to play it), I'll also keep the title track because it's hella funny, but I'll avoid ever playing it again duiring sex. The rest I'm deleting right now.
UPDATE: A week after writing this review, I still haven't been able to get the Nothing Really matters song off my head and I eventually started loving it. That's what happens when you write first-impression reviews.
In case you were wondering where did I get that amazing remix of El General's "Mamita Apretadita" that plays at the end of Linyerismo Episode II, well here is your mystery revealed. Venezuelan mash-up artist Pedro Infame has just released for free online distribution his first official compilation of remixes aptly titled Latinchrist Superstar. It includes the aforementioned mash-up, which he had shared with me while ago, as well as other gems worth checking out. It also comes with a cover picture of a transvestite Hugo Chavez. So you get the idea, this guy doesn't respect any son of God or political figure, so don't expect him to pay respect to MC Hammer, Lenny Kravitz or the Beastie Boys. He just doesn't give a fuck and destroy their songs with results that... well they might not be all that awesome, but they definitely are all quite interesting. Not bad for a guy coming from the telenovelas country that only exports cheesy-ass music.
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