Cultural phenomena streak through popular consciousness like meteorites. There's a significant, even life-changing, impact made somewhere, but for many it's only a moment that flickers by, soon to be swallowed back into the cosmos. Chicha might have been like that. Instead, a once-obscure music that enjoyed a fanatic embrace in the Peruvian slums of the 1970s has become a full-fledged global occasion thanks to the stunning success of a 2007 CD called The Roots of Chicha. The album, released by the Brooklyn-based Barbès Records, was a passionate act of cultural appreciation: a heart-strong effort to turn the world on its ear with something it had never expected to hear. It took listeners back to the late 1960's, when a number of Peruvian guitarists from Lima and the created a new electric hybrid, which mixed cumbia, surf, Cuban guaracha, rock, Peruvian folklore, and psychedelic touches. This new wave of Peruvian cumbia came to be known as chicha. Scorned by the middle-class and the official tastemakers, chicha remained mostly associated with the slums of Lima, where the ever-growing population of Andean migrants embraced the music and its players as their own. When Olivier Conan released the first volume of Roots of Chicha in September 2007, he couldn't have foreseen the kind of impact it would have. The musician, who co-owns the club Barbès in Brooklyn and owns the label of the same name, had fallen in love with the music on a trip to Peru in the summer of 2006. Back in New York, he started his own band, Chicha Libre, as an attempt to share his enthusiasm. Then, he released a compilation of some of the best chicha tracks from the '70s. The music quickly found an audience in the US and in Europe. Musicians and DJs embraced it as a lost link between rock and Latin cultures. Accolades flowed from the New York Times, NPR, Le Monde, El Comercio and the BBC. One of its songs was covered by the band Franz Ferdinand, actor Elijah Wood praised it profusely in an interview to Paste magazine. Chilean rock group Los Tres gave a copy of the record to then-president Bachelet, which somehow became national news.
S**B
Absolutey Angelic Music!!!
I heard this music on myspace and instantly fell in love with it. When I read the review below, it quite saddened me and I felt this music needed to be spoken well off. It is often a shame when people believe that their opinions are the only ones that matter and everyone else may as not exist, to the level that they have to dehumanise the efforts and artistic expressions of other human beings....(artistic fascism.) There is nothing more inhumane than this view. To me, this music IS "angelic" and I'm not ashamed to admit it. I admit that it might not be for everyone. (Bob Marley's my favourite and yet a couple of my really close friends just can't get into him.)Everyone's different, get over it. However, only a fool will find himself ripped off after buying this CD. Why? Because there are samples of it all over the inernet. I listened to all 17 of them and decided I liked it before buying. If you don't like the samples, don't buy the CD. Pretty common sense, if you ask me. One note I will make, though, is that just as with all pop culture buzz words, everyone has their own interpretation of what psychedelic means. If your version is the typical psych cliche of this: 1.One day, boy or girl decides they need to experience more, 2.They encounter some drug, particularly LSD 3. They decide to take it 4. Now the universe will never be the same and they can never go back and they've seen the sham of our existence and they could only figure out what thousands have figured out without drugs by the use of LSD and there's only one thing left to do 5. write a 20 minute rock opus with fuzz and wah and flanging and all the effects that everyone else is using at the time and tell the world what a strange trip it's been, only to burn out after that...well you won't find this cliche here. To me I'd say it had a more tropical and surf feel, like I'm stepping into the rainforest. But like I said, listen to the samples and judge for yourself, and go to the myspace site where there are four songs in full. My favourite is Carinito by Los Hijos del Sol. If that song doesn't sell you, then this CD isn't for you. In my personal taste, this is some of my favourite Latin music, but that's for you to decide. Do yourself a favour, and avoid insulting other's expressions like the plague. After all, what goes around comes around. Respect.
E**A
leave this in the rainforest
I bought this item on the recommendation of a fellow member of a Psych internet group. I was intrigued by the idea of a mixture of latin music and screaching surf guitars and wailing farfisa organs. I have NEVER been so disappointed by a cd in my life. It's basically very poor cumbias played by musicians of very poor standard, with the odd interjection of appallingly played electric guitars and totally out of place farfisa. This was junk music played by people trying to earn a bit in the oil fields of Peruvian amazonia. Playing the drunken workers on the weekend - a latter day Peruvian Deadwood no less. To people starved of all that is human and working arduous hours in very inhospitable conditions it may have sounded angelic, but in the cold light of day it sounds horrible. The only thing remotely psychedelic about this is that after you have listened to it , it feels like a bad trip. Avoid like the plague
B**R
Excellent fun album.
This is a really great compilation. Great for parties! Don't know what the other review on Amazon is on about this is fantastic. The guitars are great. I DJ as a bit of a hobby for friends, and trust me, I've had people dancing around to these tunes to abandon, great stuff. If you like the Panama compilations, Disco Fuentes stuff or latin music in general I suggest you give it a whirl.Some of my favourite tracks on this are Carinito, El Milagro Verde, and of course Para Elisa, Beethoven's For Elise latined up, nice.
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