ISONIDO AMAZONICO! [2LP] (UNIQUE LASER ETCHED D-SIDE, INDIE EXCLUSIVE) (RSD 2019)

Barbes Records released Sonido Amazonico! - Chicha Libre's debut album - Ten years ago. The label had already made a splash the year before with the release of The Roots of Chicha - the very first time Peruvian psychedelic cumbia was anthologized for a foreign audience. The compilation quickly became a cult album and contributed to popularize a style of music that until then had been scorned by the Peruvian middle class. While loosely inspired by Colombian cumbia, chicha incorporated Andean melodies, some Cuban son, and the sounds of surf guitars, Farfisa organs and Moog synthesizers: an oddly post-modern combination of western psychedelia, Latin rhythms, regional music and vintage rock. ?Barbes owner and Roots of Chicha producer Olivier Conan, not satisfied with the sole release of vintage tracks, wanted to explore the music further. With the help of keyboardist Joshua Camp and guitarist Vincent Douglas, he created Chicha Libre as a means to explore and transform a music that had fallen out of favor with younger people. ??Chicha Libre's sound and approach were completely indebted to the Peruvian bands it originally emulated. Like their mentors, they used surf guitar, organ sounds and Latin percussion to play a mixture of borrowed and homegrown sounds - but they had no qualms in adding their own foreign and personal touches. Their borrowings differed from that of their Peruvian precursors u with bits of classical music and pop debris from three continents - and, with little desire to remain authentic, they quickly started experimenting. After all, the Latin rhythms that formed the basis of the music were almost as foreign to them as they were to the Shipibo Indians who first took up the electric guitar. ??When Chicha Libre released Sonido Amazonico, the band had been playing a regular gig at barbes, their Brooklyn home base, and done a few out of town shows - but while they hoped that people would like the record , they didn't have much expectations. Against all odds, the record turned out to do quite well and was picked up by Crammed Disc in Europe, and a local Argentinean label. Positive reviews poured in - from Pitchfork, NPR, Rolling Stone Argentina, Radio France. Their music ended up featured on TV shows Weeds and Homeland, they played the Simpsons' theme, chicha-style, on a 20th anniversary film (alongside ZZ Top and The Red Hot Chili Peppers) and they started touring around the world. ?Chicha Libre played in most of Europe, Turkey, North America, Mexico - but especially South America. They were invited to play Lima, the Jerusalem of Chicha, where they were joined on stage by Los Shapis - the very band that had coined the term chicha. They played Colombia, where cumbia was born, and Brazil - but Argentina and Chile turned out to be where they made the biggest impression. Some people are big in Japan; Chicha Libre became big in Argentina. ??Ten years later, Chicha Libre turned out to be the first of a string of new Chicha bands around the non-Peruvian world and Sonido Amazonico has become a cult in certain parts of the world. ?Still, the album had never been released on vinyl, so here it is at last. Available in the wax format that the cumbia gods had always intended it for. ??SONIDO AMAZONICO ?PRIMAVERA EN LA SELVA ?MI PLATO DE BARRO ?TRES PASAJEROS ?THE HUNGRY SONG ?EL BORRACHITO ?PAVANE ?SIX PIEDS SOUS TERRE ?UN SHIPIBO EN ESPANA ?INDIAN SUMMER ?LA CUMBIA DEL ZAPATERO ?POPCORN ANDINO ?YO NO FUI ?GNOSIENNE NO.1