Chicha Libre

‘Psychedelic’ is a buzzword being used a lot these days, especially to sell evermore obscure treasures dug up from the world’s once lost, now rediscovered, international musical archives. In some instances calling the music ‘psych’ is a bit of a stretch – just because it’s weird or dressed up in imported trappings from the same era does not make it necessarily so – and at other times it seems to be merely cashing in on a trend. Happily this is not generally the case when applied to cumbia, because this venerable genre of Colombian music with an international reach truly did go through a psychedelic period.

Los Wembler's est le groupe légendaire de Iquitos, la Capitale de l'Amazonie au Pérou. Les cinq frères Sanchez qui composent le groupe sont des pionniers de la Cumbia amazonienne qui ont joué un rôle essentiel dans le mouvement Chicha des années 1970. Le groupe, qui a écrit et enregistré des grands classiques comme "Sonido Amazonico" et "La danza del Petrolero" n'ont vraiment jamais céssé de jouer au Pérou depuis toutes ces années mais c'est par l'initiative de quelques producteurs et par un mouvement Cumbia de plus en plus présent dans le monde que Los Wembler's attisent les plus curieux et franchit les frontières apres plus de 20 ans d'absence en decidant de revenir sur le devant de la scène.

Colombiana es el nombre de la nueva producción de Niño de Elche. No existía un título para esta apuesta a principios de 2018 cuando Paco Contreras Molina, siempre fiel a su espíritu rompedor, curioso y anárquico, contactó al bogotano Eblis Álvarez proponiéndole fungir como productor e instrumentista de un disco aún nebuloso, del que no había ninguna certidumbre más allá de dar una vuelta de tuerca a las búsquedas del de Elche, colindantes en el activismo con Voces del Extremo (2015), paródicas y libertinas con Antología del cante flamenco heterodoxo (2018), últimas aventuras a su nombre que fueron apareciendo mientras imponía su rúbrica de ex flamenco descastado en bandas itinerantes como Exquirla y RaVerdial.

Víctor Lidio Jara Martínez was a Chilean teacher, theater director, poet, singer-songwriter, and political activist. He developed Chilean theater by directing a broad array of works, ranging from locally produced plays to world classics, as well as the experimental work of playwrights such as Ann Jellicoe. He also played a pivotal role among neo-folkloric musicians who established the Nueva Canción Chilena (New Chilean Song) movement. This led to an uprising of new sounds in popular music during the administration of President Salvador Allende. Jara was arrested shortly after the Chilean coup of 11 September 1973, which overthrew Allende. He was tortured during interrogations and ultimately shot dead, and his body was thrown out on the street of a shantytown in Santiago. The contrast between the themes of his songs, which focused on love, peace, and social justice, and the brutal way in which he was murdered transformed Jara into a "potent symbol of struggle for human rights and justice" for those killed during the regime of Augusto Pinochet.