Río Arriba

At first glance this might sound like latin music, but even the slightest look/listen reveals the work of some serious if not overtly subtle remixing/reworking of traditional recordings. Mostly in the realm of South American, cumbia, son, or Peruvian sources, the overdriven bass/drums, the layered echoed vocals, the otherwise strangeness betrays the reworking. As the CD progresses the guise begins to drop and the tracks get weirder and weirder. This is ultra hip, taking stuff like Amon Tobin a step back to the source and 3 steps forward ahead. What Martin Denny heard when he swallowed the worm down in Tobasco. Too goddamned hip.

1) slow sultry cumbia, traditional romantic male vocs, sexy and dark, not obviously treated
2) beat is metallic and borders on industrial and betrays that this isn’t traditional world music, heavy, Peruvian tone/beat with pan flute and guitars
3) slower with female layered vocals
4) a slowed cumbia with wet splashy sounds, Martin Denny animal’ish sounds
5) crazy cool convoluted rhythm/percussion, the going is getting weird now and all pretense is dropped as the speeds vary into twisted ritardandos
6) vocals appear in that manu chau/dancehall delivery, fans of manu chau might dig this
7) a dubby cumbia flavor (?)
8) trippy dub
9) latin rap, sorta, over a dark sound bed
10) almost an African mysterious tribal tone
11) lovely pleasant with female vocals, Llassa comes to mind, a subtle son/cumbia, chill