Sonido Amazonico! [LP]

Double vinyl LP pressing. Chicha Libre plays a mixture of Latin rhythms, surf music and psychedelic pop inspired by Peruvian music from Lima and the Amazon. The Brooklyn-based band mixes up covers of forgotten Chicha classics with French-tinged originals, re-interpretation of 70's pop classics as well as cumbia versions of pieces by Satie and Wagner. While Chicha Libre's repertoire has evolved somewhat from the Peruvian canon, the sound and approach are completely indebted to the Peruvian bands it originally emulated. Like them, they use surf guitar, organ sounds and latin percussion to play a mixture of borrowed and homegrown sounds. The borrowings are somewhat different - classical music and pop debris from 3 continents in Chicha Libre's case - but the latin rhythms that form the basis of the music are both as close and as foreign to them, as they were to the Shipibo Indians who first took up the electric guitar.