Chicha Libre: Show Preview

By Sam Prestianni Wednesday, May 9 2012

Chicha Libre roughly translates as a kind of intoxicating freedom, which is precisely how this Brooklyn-based sextet approaches making music. On the band's second album, Canibalismo, its globetrotting players from Venezuela, Mexico, France, and the U.S. devour sultry grooves that span time and place. Their sound is a hypnotic mash-up of reverb-drenched surf guitar, funky Farfisa organ, trippy Moog synths, tropical percussion, and Afro-Latin melodies. It all owes a debt to fellow Brooklyn avant-gardist Marc Ribot's "fake Cuban" approach in Los Cubanos Postizos. Fans of the popular Ethiopiques compilation series of Ethiopian R&B appropriations from the '60s and '70s will also love Chicha Libre's world-rhythm explorations.