Category: cumbia

TUNING TO THE ROOSTER

Esa Cumbiera Intelectual (en español) – …another long article on cumbia , out today in the Argentine newspaper Página 12. (aside: as we drove, Pablo Lescano played me some of the upcoming Kumbia Queers album he produced and it sounded great, Andean-style vocals !, all in all unlike their current album’s dull rock covers.) shout to Sonido Martines for the tip.

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Musicans have to tune to something, and “in-tune” versus “out of tune” is a matter of relativity, so you might as well tune to the rooster.

Vibracatheral Orchestra has a nice album by that name which i blogged about 2 years back (“hangin’ out in another corner of the astral plane parking lot…); today i found its likely namesake:

mow105mow105

[audio:06 Turning To The Rooster.mp3]

Blind Street Musicians of Cusco – Tuning to the Rooster

… once they’ve tuned it, the Peruvian harps and mandolins sound like this:

[audio:05 Marinera Cusquena.mp3]

Blind Street Musicians of Cusco – Marinera Cusqueña (3-Beat Rhythm)

the album’s buyable. Japan possess an intense tradition of blind street musicians playing strings which Ove-Naxx introduced me to.

rooster

SLOW BURN: THE EXPLOSION OF CUMBIA

 

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it’s out! The Fader’s summer issue (F55) is in stores now and sports a lengthy article on CUMBIA by yours truly, along with AMAZING IMAGES from photojournalist Gabriele Stabile.

How awesome is Gabriele? Consider the following: Fader sent us to Argentina for a week – during this time he lost his only jacket, almost broke a rib, was unsuccessfully mugged (thank you, taxi driver!), stepped in dog poop like 3 times, was buzzed by armed youth on a motorbike and nearly shot at (twice, technically), was denied return passage to America (he made it out a few days later, only hours before the airport was closed due to brush fire), and still managed to take a thousand or more photographs (on actual film no less!). It was an honor to roll with someone so dedicated.

 

the magazine is available as free PDF download (45MB); our piece begins on page 59, but you should seek out the print version, if only to do justice to luscious, intense, Gursky-eat-yr-cold-and-sterile-heart-out centerfold photos like this one, taken at a Damas Gratis show. Yes, they are moshing. to slow keytar-driven cumbia:

 

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ANARCUMBIA / STATESIDE CUMBIA SLOWDOWN

 

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[audio:amandititita-viernes_de_quincena.mp3]

Amandititita – Viernes de Quincena

pop acid satire ‘anarcumbia’ from Mexico City

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shout to Villa Diamante; he directed me towards where I could find this next piece.

he had had time to find and then lose the thing I’d been looking for without success (a cumbia rebajada mixtape from Houston crew Choppaholix). Now he can’t find it (but told me where to look) which suggests that he still has it, somewhere, obscured under the weight of semantically decaying metadata, or perhaps he has deleted it to make space for something else, an unknown known lodged in a hard drive.

“Empacho digital” says Villa Diamante; having eaten too much, bellyfull, the belly hurts. “Solo se sabe que el exceso de información de los tiempos que corren es el eje principal, en sintonía con Babasonicos.“

One solution is slow down.

[audio:Choppaholix_Choppacumbia_Track12.mp3]

Choppaholix – Choppacumbia track 12

plus youtubery of Sonido Condor‘s Cumbia de los Estados (as in USA), both original & rebajada… first heard the latter via Sonido Martines; hold tight cumbia fans, next week is your week

despacio

 

SONORA DINAMITA

cumbia, cumbia

the more you look the more you see. what group?

[audio:Grup_Kien_Cumbia_Nueva.mp3]
Grupo Kien? – Cumbia Nueva

& then there’s tropical kitsch cumbia from the heartland – ZAP! POW! aburdist Colombian pop enjambs comic-thrash breakdowns. The chorus, a self-fulfilling sentence echoed in the first song as well, poses between statement and command: Y bailaremos la cumbia. Y gozaremos la cumbia.

[audio:LaSonoraDinamita_Batman.mp3]
La Sonora Dinamita – Batman

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at the Spain show this Saturday a Venezuelan girl with Colombian parents called her mother so that she could hear the cumbia i was playing. “This doesn’t happen in Madrid!!” An honor to have reached someone down those circuits.

500 kids came to the party! Madrid sube. foto nicked from Sr. Atlantico’s flickr.

rupture+jd madrid

TROPICAL SUBSTITUTE DATA

i will not be at this party (Jahdan & I will be throwing down in Madrid then). but the last one was FUN, CONSENSUS FUN. June 6th, Glasslands, Brooklyn. Soot & Dutty Artz present:june6

& if I were there I’d play this song

[audio:Celso_Pina_Cumbia_Engolilla.mp3]
Celso Pi̱a РCumbia Engolilla

and a bit later on, same production crew helping out,

[audio:Julieta_Venegas_Eres_para_mi(SonideroNacionalCumbowRmx).mp3]
Julieta Venegas ft. Anita Tijoux – Eres Para Mi (Sonidero Nacional cumbow rmx)

Venegas knows not to argue with the wind. Geko tipped my hand on this remix of the Mexican pop star.

Julieta Venegas-Limon Y Sal-Frontal

SONIDEROS LISTEN UP

For his recent Europe tour, Sonido Martines re-booted 2 cumbia mix CDs he was involved with, Las Rebajadas Van A Brooklin and La Sonidera Colombiana. I snagged a few copies for the curious…

[Vampiros]

they come with color inserts in a slimline case, CD-r w/ color label. (Harlem hiphop mix style)

LA SONIDERA COLOMBIANA ORTO SABOR VAM. DJ

La Sonidera Colombiana: a 71 minute mix of upbeat new cumbia by DJ Vampiros – Highly Awesome!! Tracklist legible in the album artwork scan below.

U.S. people – $8 which includes shipping: SOLD OUT!!

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rest of world – $9.50 which include shipping: SOLD OUT!!!

LA SONIDERA COLOMBIANA ORTO SABOR VAM. DJ

Sonido Martines says: “En los mercados de buenos aires donde se comercializan copias en cdr y mixtapes de djs cumbieros, principalmente la feria de bajo flores y la salada (entre muchos otros) suele escucharse en los parlantes el pisatemas de “vampiros dee jay” en muchos de los puestos. Sus mezclas, que suelen referirse a un estilo en particular por cd, se han difundido mucho en los ultimos años. Con este esperado mixtape vampiros propone mezclar barrios y contextos latinoamericanos muy similares pero desconocidos entre si, barrios entre los que los gigas de data suelen viajar mas en buses que por el p2p. Desde nueva cumbia argentina, cumbia villera, mashups de barrios altos hasta sonideras mejicanas de estados unidos y edits oscuros rebajados y clasicos colombianos, la sonidera colombiana es sin duda una impecable manera de mezclar los sonidos del gigante cumbiero continental.”(i’ll translate this soon….)

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REBAJADAS VAN BROOKLIN

Las Rebajadas Van a Brooklin first aired on my radio show. It’s a long half-hour of that slowed-down syrupy cumbia sound we love.

U.S. people – $8 which includes shipping: SOLD OUT

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rest of world – $9.50 which includes shipping: SOLD OUT!

CHARTRES-TOPPER

in addition the 2nd day of Musique Action tonite, a last-minute Rupture solo DJ set will go down in Chartes (Orleans) tomorrow, and I’ll rejoin The Ex + Getatchew Saturday in Kortrijk, Belgium.

Outside our hotel there’s a Turkish restaurant where they’re listening to music on the room speakers & simultaneously blasting saz pieces from laptop’s YouTube link.

Expect more polyrhythm/cacaophony as our attention spans shatter along digital fault-lines.

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havent had time to listen, but: new Boy Better Know mixtape, as blogged by Prancehall, who also knows.

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the cumbia bug is infectious! Time to release more spores:

Afrosound – Ponchito de Colores

I’ve got multiple versions of this song, here’s the weirdest one– whoop whoop, plus someone quacks the bassline. This version is by Afrsound (thanks Sonido). All the others are from Ecuator. At this moment, a stronger blogger could resist the urge for ‘cute alpaca foto’…

Alpacas-Andes-Ecuador-Photographic-Print-C13062736
…as it’s downright SUMMERY in France, time for a romantic cumbia sonidera from the kung-fu-influenced Mexican-Peruvian Grupo Ginnsu outta NUEVA YORK, with wah on the guitar. (Ginnsu’s website is noisy but kinda crazy.)

Grupo Ginnsu – Cumbia de los Patos

(“Ducks’ cumbia”? am i missing something?)

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SONIDO Y LA NUEVA CUMBIA ARGENTINA

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yes! coming soon on Soot: a compilation of Nueva Cumbia Argentina selected by Sonido Martines! 12″ for the DJs, then CD for the rest of the world. we’ve been working on this for months, almost there… heads up for some European dates w/ Sonido & myself in April.

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[12″ roughs by Zurita]

last nite’s party in SF was inspiring — 400+ folks came out and dance the night away with us!

while Sonido’s comp focuses on the Buenos Aires scene, the sound travels. Here’s a fresh slice from Mexico, Grupo La Cumbia de Darwin Perea. . This synthy tune belongs to the cumbia subgenre of ‘negrita’ tunes. Which are about love, lust, human ownership, loss, and memory — slavery music! (sort of).

Grupo La Cumbia – Le Negrita

“TO ALL MY BROWN GIRLS IN THE WHOLE WORLD, WITH AFFECTION”

-a donde vas negrita?

-a Nueva York mi amor.

TORMENTA TROPICAL

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Fans of cumbia and other tropical sounds should come to the Bersa Discos party in San Francisco tomorrow (sat.) nite, where i’ll be DJing krunk kumbia heaters alongside Bersa bredren and some of Buenos Aires’ Zizek gang.

ive been chatting a lot about cumbia lately, so i’ll take this moment to say: reggaeton production as lively & creative than ever. here’s a supercharged cover tune, sort of… from a Dominican-German? singing one of the songs labeled inappropriate by Clear Channel post 9/11:

Wilman de Jesus – Walk Like An Egyptian (Pytter mix)

plus, the only neo-whatever WTF clubb jam that’s more now thing than Crookers’ Kid Cudi remix is a new top secret Jah Dan exclusive i will be airing at all available soundsystems, prod. by Matt Shadetek, the only producer i know whose music has gone full viral in NYC black youth culture.