The Sailor Jerry Blog

11/12/2008

"The Roots Of Chicha" - Psychedelic Cumbias From Peru

You're probably saying to yourself, "Huh?"

I get it. This doesn't seem like the typical crap we post on here. But it actually IS.

My insane friend/enemy Marco sent me a link to this compilation a few weeks ago saying something to effect of, "I wish all Peruvian music sounded like this." A quick click of a link took me to an Amazon page with the mp3s for the record. The cover sucked, but I had a hunch he was on to something.

He was.

Ever since downloading the mp3s of this compilation I've been obsessed, listening to the album religiously and humming the tunes when I wasn't.

The Juaneco Y Su Combo track is probably my favorite of the bunch with it's simultaneously amazing and cheesy Farfisa riffs and ridiculously catchy choruses. Simply awesome, I mean LOOK at these guys (they're pictured above)!

I've really no reference point for this, so I'll leave that to Oliver Conan, who wrote the liner notes of the CD (with a couple of my favorites below):

"Chica is a corn drink that has been popular in Andean countries for millennia. It is brewed from fermented maize and can be made either into a mild alcoholic beverage called chica de jora, or into a soft drink called chicha morada.

"Chica also refers to a particular brand of Peruvian pop music that educated Peruvians usually look down upon. The music is often labeled tropical, hich means that it relies on a standard Afro-Cuban percussion section (mostly bongos, congas, bells, and timbales). It also draws heavily on cumbia, which Colombia has been exporting to the rest of the world for half a century. Chica is also known simply as Cumbia Peruana."

"The music was so fresh, so exciting, and its appeal so effortlessly universal that it still seems strange that it never managed to find an international audience. The oddly post-modern combination of western psychedelia, Cuban and Colombian rhythms, Andean melodies and idiosyncratic experimentation was close in spirit to the pop syncretism of Brazilian Tropicalia bands such as Os Mutantes."