Cumbia de Satanas

‘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.

‘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.

Mexican group Los Ángeles Azules were formed in the early '80s by brothers Elías, José, and Jorge Mejía Avante. Playing a Latin style known as onda grupera, the band became a chart-topping act after issuing Inolvidables in 1996, soon achieving platinum status in Argentina, where they successfully performed live in 1998. Later, singer Carlos Becíes decided to leave the group, forming his own band called Los Ángeles de Charly.

Fifty years after the release of one of the founding records of the genre known as Peruvian cumbia (by guitar players Enrique Delgado Montes and Berardo Hernández “Manzanita”), Vampisoul presents this third volume in the series “Cumbia Beat”, which brings together 45 rpm rarities from acclaimed groups, short-lived bands and outstanding huaycumbias.Like the previous volumes in this series, listening to this record takes you on a journey across the geography of Peru, as the majority of the groups on this collection were from different regions of the country, or had close links to them, although all of the artists recorded in Lima.Most of the bands emerged during the period 1968-1980, a time of deep political and social change implemented by the nationalist military dictatorship.

El Despertar Del Potro is the 2018 album by Los Reales De La Cumbia. Creating music on the strength of dancing, this was released by Master Media Ltda.