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CD Review
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Roots World, CD Review >>
If globalization has any virtues, the ability to
travel back in audible time and space may be one
of the most enlightening. The oil boom that
transformed the Peruvian Amazon beginning in the
late 1960s generated massive social displacement,
horrific work conditions, unbridled ecological
damage, and the consumption of plenty of chicha
(the indigenous Andean corn liquor). If the
musical consequences were predictable, the
mash-up sonic results were unique, recalling the
cultural history of other regional working-class
musics like ska, bachata, and kaiso.
The transistor radio's spread, labor migration,
and the predatory drive for primitive capitalist
accumulation also brought Colombian cumbias into
a hybrid head-on with Peruvian criollo music,
Afro-Cuban rhythms, airy pentatonic Andean tunes,
northern psychedelia, Dick Dale surf guitars,
tinny portable keyboards, and sundry electronic
effects. The Roots Of Chicha presents 17 tropical
bastard wonders by six of the era's most prolific
Amazonian chicha bands. Consider Los Destellos'
Para Elisa for a mind-bending cumbia-fication of
Beethoven's Für Elise, and Los Diablos Rojos'
Sácalo, Sácalo, a frenetic guaracha that takes La
Bamba through quantum leaps-the latter are still
cracking some four decades later.
Lest the faithful mourn, any word of chicha's
passing is happily premature, thanks not least to
Barbès Records (the house that brought forth
Hazmat Modine) and Chicha Libre, gringo
Brooklyn's contemporary shout-out to chicha
antigua (roots chicha), purveyed via quirky
instrumentation like the Venezuelan cuatro, a
vintage Hohner Electravox (whose accordion-like
appearance belies its purely electronic
organ-like sound), and beaucoup Latin percussion.
For good measure, ¡Sonido Amazonico! begins with
the same eponymous Los Mirlos classic that opens
Roots of Chicha, tapping the
Farfisa-Moog-percussion groove that rocked the
Peruvian Amazon way back when (although Los
Mirlos, too, remain active today). From there,
with Primavera en la selva (spring in the jungle)
they launch into a nearly unrecognizable
minor-key read of Vivaldi's analogous theme from
The Four Seasons, parallel sonic surgery on
Ravel's Pavane, and a smoky bolero interpretation
of Satie's Gnossienne No. 1. Chicha Libre adds
numerous original compositions, extending the
chicha spirit to transnational audiences, with a
good deal of wry amusement and eccentric
revelation along the way.
-by Michael Stone 07/31/08 >> go there
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