Today, all musical stereotypes have disappeared and Chicha Libre has become a cult band thanks to their explosive cocktail of surf rhythms, pop melodies and a psychedelic crush on traditional music from the Amazon. Although they have they are based in Brooklyn (New York), this barbarian combo is formed by French, Americans, Venezuelans and Mexicans who do not hesitate to mix traditional Peruvian music with original compositions in French, Spanish and English in addition to reinterpreting pop classics from the 70's.

But we better go back to the origins of this mestizo sound: what is really the chicha? Firstly, this is a liquor made ??from fermented corn by the Incas and their descendants from the days before Columbus. Although chicha is also the name given to a cumbia style of Peru popularized in the late 60's, that incorporated Andean melodies, a touch of Cuban son, as well as the characteristic fuzz of surf guitars, farfisa organs and moog synthesizers. No doubt, this was a wild combination that changed latin music forever, but it was lost in the oblivion of time until Chicha Libre decided to pay tribute to it.

After the success of their debut album, they have just returned with their second LP to delight all those people who want to discover exotic sounds. In a break from their North American tour, I had the chance to speak with Olivier Conan (their lead singer), about the origins of the band, its mixture of styles and the magic of surf music. here are the best quotes:

“There definitely is a new wave of world music, a new way of looking at it. A lot of us grew up listening to and playing rock, but also listening to all sort of different music – african, Latin, eastern european etc… All of it as found its way in what we do in a personal, internalized way. We don’t play cumbia because it’s exotic, but in part because it’s always been around us, even if chicha itself was a new thing. Same goes for a lot of new bands mixing it up. Dengue Fever is the perfect example, and we do feel a great sense of kinship with what they do. We’ve done a couple of tours with them, which have been great fun, I think we take a similar approach to mashing up global sounds.”

“No surfers in the band I’m afraid, but all of us love surf music… The California surf sound really struck a chord with people around the world. It was very popular in France, where I grew up, as well as in Mexico or Peru for instance. The fact that it was mostly instrumental made it easy to relate to no matter what language you spoke – but also the fact that that surf music always favored melodies – not just rocking out. Surf has quite a tradition of borrowing melodies from all around – whether middle eastern with dick Dale, or all sort of covers with the Ventures – including classical and latin covers, not unlike what chicha musicians were doing – which I think is one of the reasons iwhy t resonated with people around the world.”

“The band has evolved quite a bit in the past four years. We waited a long time to do a second album because second albums are scary.. People have certain expectations. For this one, we didn’t want to just pay tribute to Peruvian music, we wanted it to be our own record. We wrote most of the material, some of it isn’t classic chicha, althoughwe kept the sound to the original template. We spent a lot more time recording it and did most of it ourselves - at barbes, during the day. Josh and I experimented a lot with sounds, various synths, sound effects, juxtapositions, all sorts of pedals, sending most of it through an amp – guitars, synths and even percussion sometimes. We tried to never use the same sound twice and go for a wide palette, using some electronics, even some sequencing, but all of it with a 1970’s analog point of view, if that makes sense. “Canibalismo” is a reference to Tropicalia and Oswald De Andrade’s manifesto – we love the process that brought about tropicalia and the fact that they were consciously cannibalizing all these sounds and cultures, we feel that what we are doing is similar in spirit. We are fellow cannibals.”

“Our musical preferences and influences are multiple – for one thing, we come from different places, France, the US, Venezuela and Mexico. That alone gives us a pretty wide range of references.. The two main musical idioms I identify with are probably punk and sasla, the two things I listened to as a teenager. Josh has a lot of prog rock in him (we all do to a certain extent.. ). I am French, so I have internalized a lot of French music, whether classical or chanson – but I have spent more time listening to all sort of Latin music, from venezuela Llanera to colombian cumbia and cuban son. And surf music, of course.”