Various Artists: Cumbia Beat Vol 1 (Vampi Soul/Southbound)

 |   |  <1 min read

Los Sander's de Nana: El Tramboyito (1972)
Various Artists: Cumbia Beat Vol 1 (Vampi Soul/Southbound)

This double-disc -- with fat multilingual booklet and period photos of bands and chintzy album covers -- pulls together 25 intrumental tracks from the Sixties and Seventies by Peruvian guitar pop bands who bring traditional percussion backbeats to their slightlydelic pop and proto-rock.

There is cool guitar jangle and sharp playing (think Telstar with funky congas) and you'll perhaps want to hear more by Los Beta-5, the slinky sound of Los Diablos Rojos and Los Mirlos.

This music emerged in the mid Sixties (the collection covers '66 - '76) with the migration of rural people to Lima, bringing with them traditional rhythms and tuning it in to what was happening in the outside world. So you get Los Ecos covering Lennon-McCartney's I Don't Want to Spoil the Party (Aqui en la Fiesta) and plenty of influence from the Shadows and the Ventures -- less so Santana and Hendrix.

This is tightly constructed music which unrolls itself over various Latin style (mambo, son, merengue etc) and in places doesn't sound too dissimilar to West African juju and palm wine sounds.

Thoroughly enjoyable tremolo guitar-pop. 

Share It

Your Comments

Jim - Oct 6, 2010

top notch as ever graham. those seeking a bit more chicha (which is the Peruvian guitar pop you speak of) in their life would do well to check out The Roots Of Chicha on Barbes (and some of their other releases are excellent too), and it's successor is also out anyday now and is also utterly scorchio.
There's more but I will resist boring you,
all the vest (and pants.)

post a comment

More from this section   World Music from Elsewhere articles index

GLOBAL RADIO: A round-up of recent world music releases

GLOBAL RADIO: A round-up of recent world music releases

Because Elsewhere is one of the few mainstream websites which has no problem writing about world music in the same space as pop, rock, jazz, reggae and whatever, we have been increasingly inundated... > Read more

THE WOMAD WORLD RETURNS TO TARANAKI (2022): Here comes a Hendrix from the desert

THE WOMAD WORLD RETURNS TO TARANAKI (2022): Here comes a Hendrix from the desert

From Sweetwaters and the Big Day Out through Auckland's Laneway and summer concerts like Splore, often the event's atmosphere is as much the attraction as who's on the bill. That's especially... > Read more

Elsewhere at Elsewhere

TransGlobal Underground: Run Devil and Demons: The Best of TGU (Triton)

TransGlobal Underground: Run Devil and Demons: The Best of TGU (Triton)

Although many of their innovative approaches have been overtaken by (often lesser) subsequent artists, TransGlobal Underground out of London set a high threshold throughout the Nineties with their... > Read more

THE BARGAIN BUY: Robin Trower; Original Album Series

THE BARGAIN BUY: Robin Trower; Original Album Series

Funny how quickly some people can get written out of rock history. British guitarist Robin Trower once commanded considerable column inches in rock magazines and encyclopedias of the Seventies... > Read more