Archive for the ‘Cumbia’ tag
DJ Chilly’s El Sonido is definitely one of the dopest shows on KEXP. Every Monday from 6 to 9PM, Chilly selects the choicest tunes from all over Latin America and the rest of the Spanish and Portuguese speaking world, spanning genres, generations and cultures like it’s no thing. It’s a guaranteed three hour fiesta for your earholes. So, when Chilly asked me and Toast to come on as guests and do a 30 minute live DJ set, we couldn’t refuse.
It’s our first live radio gig, so please excuse the roughness around the edges. We’re still proud of our little mix, though. Hope you like it. Shouts out to Chilly!
I’ve gotta be honest, I feel a little guilty. I’ve been sitting on this project from San Antonio cumbia king Sonora and Brooklyn/Rio vocalist Zuzuka Poderosa for a minute now, and am only just getting to posting it. The ep is titled Sonora Remezcla, and it is very good.
Ah. I feel so much better now.
As the title subtly hints, Remezcla is primarily Sonora remixes of Zuzuka Poderosa tracks, with some original collaborations in the mix as well. Zuzuka comes from the bass-whomping world of baile funk, and that mixed with Sonora’s more loping signature style results in a healthy variety of sounds.
The entire project is oriented towards the dancefloor, but it skips lightly from early-evening warm-ups, right through the meat of the dancing, and into the wind-down just after last call.
All in all, very solid, and hopefully a sign of more to come.
It’s almost that time of year again, when the hordes of music makers, scenesters, wannabes, never-were’s, and assorted fans descend upon that jewel in Texas’s crown, Austin. I speak, of course, of South By Southwest. As if I could be speaking of anything else.
This year will be the first that Last Night’s Mixtape has a formal presence for the big to-do, and we’re going to be previewing a bunch of the groups that various LxNxM mafiosi will be catching. But before we wade neck deep into the global ecosystem of sounds that will infest Austin, I want to take a short jaunt to the south west, and get into some of the sounds coming out of a – very frankly – surprising location: San Antonio.
If you followed the rise of cumbia as a dancefloor-wrecking sound, you probably stumbled across San Antonio’s DJ/producer/party-thrower Sonora at some point. Unlike some remixers, Sonora’s revisitations of everything from Usher to LxNxM favorites Los Rakas aren’t simply throwing a beat over the same song. If Guinness adds life, as they say, then Sonora adds flavor.
Los Rakas ft Favi – Abrazame (sonora remix) by SONORA
Going in a whole different direction, The Empireal Formula is a producer and DJ whose work goes back towards minimalism and understated tweaks. It’s an interesting contrast to the high-bombast production work that can be seen as a rework, and it shines through in his original work as well (not that remixes aren’t original, but hell, we live in a binary world, amirite?).
Limit To Your Love (The Empireal Formula Remix) by The Empireal Formula
And last but not least on this tip-of-the-iceberg/grill tour of San Antone, behold the man with the best name in… ever? That would, of course, be Mexicans With Guns. What can be said about this man that cannot be said about the many other djs who rock luchador masks 24/7? Wait – did you say that there are no other djs who keep their identity a closely guarded secret and change clothes in phone booths wear a wrestling mask at all times? Let’s just say that when your peers are Deadmau5, Toadally Krossed Out, and Frikstailers, you’re doing something right. Evidently the Red Bull Music Academy agrees, and put on Mr. With Guns for an exclusive podcast.
You can get the full range of Lone Star electronical tastes – with healthy representation from San Anto – from the subtly titled compilation Texas. Curated by San Antonio label Exponential Records, Texas brings together fourteen producers from a variety of different electronic styles. You can catch tracks from some of the folks listed here, as well as a variety of others, and it’s an interesting slice into a scene that doesn’t yet have a Texas-sized footprint outside of Texas.
Unless you’re one of the LxNxM California brethren, you’re pretty much over the winter blahness right now. And so it is in your honor that I present La Licuadora Tropical a recentish mix by Argentinian DJ El Barba to drive away the non-tropical blues.
Coming straight out of the interior Province of Tucuman, the mix was originally dropped to promote a South American tour, and integrates some pretty nicely tripped out/effected sound effects, good old fashioned cumbia (funny how fast that happens, eh?), and – as he says – a dose of dub and psychedelia.
Hell yeah.
When it comes to tropical Latin dance music, there are few people who’s ear I trust more than DJ Darwin’s. He’s had his brain wrapped around this quasi cumbia resurgence mania before it even happened and is in tight with the crew at ZZK Records down in Buenos Aires. Having brought the label head from ZZK and a few of their flagship artists to Seattle before, its no surprise that he’s helping to bring Frikstailers (pronounced Freak Stylers) to Seattle as well this Wednesday, September 29 at Nectar. The Argentinian duo just dropped a legitimate banger of a mixtape called Bicho de Luz earlier this month and promise to bring some serious energy when they hit Nectar in two days. Their style touches on amped up IDM-infused cumbia, kurduro, house, dancehall, techno and anything else that goes hard. Be sure to dive into their brand new ZZK mixtape which is linked below for your enjoyment, and the Bicho de Luz as well. We like to specialize in mixtapes, so we’ve got your covered.
ZZK Mixtape Vol. 10
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Bicho De Luz
Hit the jump for fresh video of these space cadets going retro extraterrestrial live on Argentinian television. It’s unlike anything you’ve seen before. Trust us on that.
Que pasa? here is another choice mix from the homie Dj Chorizo Funk, posted up a few days back – an “all vinyl” mix recorded live at Body Rock in Austin, Tejas. For our seattle based folk- Chorizo will be en la cocina tonight at the dj100proof / DJ Sean Cee / DJ Darwin Birthday Bash! @ Nectar, FREE SHOW! Buen provecho.
Now that sun and hot temperatures have struck the Pacific Northwest, along with the rest of the US (sorry about the triple digits, New York), it only seems right to pull out a selection of summer sounds.
There are few things more satisfying than a windows down down (or top, player) drive on a gorgeous sunny day with the right soundtrack, and I now have mine for the next wave of heatwave (redundancy redundancy).
The mix is by Canalh, and it’s a nice bass heavy cumbia mix that stays in the summer Saturday afternoon zone. Not too shabby. Enjoy!
Via the homies at Emayo Cutz.
Ah hell yeah! This is a mixtape we can really get behind! Top three reasons this mix is the shit:
1) It comes to us courtesy of the homies over at Emayo Cutz, who are holding down the cumbia scene like bosses of all bosses.
2) Arizona is fucking up people’s lives right now, and any way we can give that a little more light is good.
3) The mix is damned hot. The last Telesforo mix we put up here was a banger, and this is no different. Good shit out of Guadalajara!
And yes, there’s a lot of cursing in this post, but dammit, the coffee’s got my blood on fire!
So last night my weekend told me it wasn’t ready to settle in just yet, so I said – okay weekend let’s bounce up off this couch. I landed at the always all ages, Seattle landmark venue Vera Project and ended up peeping out Javelin, a Brooklyn based duo – comprised of funky cousins Tom van Buskirk, 27, and George Langford, 29. Armed with drum pads, mpcs, a dollar store piano guitar, an electric kazoo and slew of other merry noisemaking tools – Javelin proceeded to rock the modest yet giddy crowd.
The set made me feel alot of things, a few I’ll name here: merry go rounds, mexican ice cream trucks, miami sound machine, that movie batteries not included, kisses, a quechua disco, Herbie Hancock, dancing like a kid at a Chuck. E. Cheese animatronic show, rainbows, Dilla. It was fun. These guys pride themselves on digging for dollar bin gems and transforming them into that new new. Javelin are signed to Luaka Bop the label of eccentric maestro David Byrne. You can download the very fresh, very free mixtapes World Midi Classics Vol.2 or Andean Ocean Tape below. Still, do yourself a favor and earn what! u aint up on this? points by copping the recently released, and thoroughly pleasing full length No Mas, here .
Here is vibrationz, a guaranteed summertime jam off of No Mas.
