Folk /
Galaxia Tropical
Born in 1935 as Jorge Raúl Llerena Vásquez, Ranil’s story begins in the Peruvian Amazon, in a corner where the sounds of the forest fuse with stray radio waves from Colombia, Brazil, and Ecuador. After winning several local singing contests as a young man, he quickly realized that breaking into Peru’s music industry — especially as an artist from “the end of the world” — would not be an easy path. So he focused on his studies, becoming a teacher in a rural town near the Brazilian border, quietly…
Play Boy / Descarga Rogers’
Two almost-impossible-to-find Amazonian rarities, finally reissued together for the first time on a single. On one side, Los Playboys’ instrumental ‘Play Boy’, packed with all the hallmarks of psychedelic cumbia—playful surf-tinged guitars and a hypnotic, dancefloor-ready groove. On the flip side, a fiery Cuban-influenced Descarga jam from Iquitos’ obscure band Los Roger’s.
Iquitos, one of Peru’s most remote cities and the capital of its Amazon region, was the epicenter of the psychedelic cumbia…
Cumbia Cumbia Cumbia!!! (Vol. 4)
The historical origins of cumbia are nebulous and imprecise. The mythology surrounding it suggests an ancient past when Amerindian, African and European musical sounds were mixed together. After digging deep into the overwhelming archives of Discos Fuentes, Codiscos and Discos MAG in our previous volumes, this fourth instalment in the series “Cumbia Cumbia Cumbia!!!” comprises 28 Colombian cumbia bangers for the dance floor from the deep vaults of Discos Tropical, all of them originally releas…
Flor Campestre
Ramiro Rodriguez—Son Bayoú accordionist–shouted into the microphone: "We started at the pulga and now we're here!" The crowd erupted. He adjusted his red Hohner accordion to lead his band into a blistering rendition of Andres Landero's "La Pava Congona."
"Here" was the Contemporary Arts Museum of Houston: the Bayou City's preeminent modern arts museum which invited the group to perform their barrio cumbia inside their hallowed spaces. When I first met them, formerly as Reyno Sabanero, they had i…
Resistencia Sonora - The Living Roots Of Gaita Music In Ovejas, Colombia
*250 copies limited edition* In 2019, Resistencia Sonora was launched as a collaborative project where urban resistances and ethnic-peasant rural resistances converge in the greater area of Montes de Maria, situated in Colombia's western Caribbean region. This initiative originates in one of the musical epicenters of ancestral sounds that have fostered a now global recognition for styles such as gaita, cumbia, bullerengue, son palenque and son de negro, as well as Sabanero accordion music like p…
Tour Of Japan
Gilles Peterson: "Fascinating… love this. Thoroughly recommended". The Observer: "The focus is on great grooves and fine playing. A band to seek out." The Guardian: "Delightfully quirky album of folk songs reimagined from Afrobeat to reggae"
Minyo Crusaders return with theiir highly anticipated sophomore album Tour Of Japan following on from their debut that has sold 4k on vinyl since release and their runaway single smash 'Cumbia Del Monte Fuji' that has almost hit 5million streams on Spotify. …
Wganda Kenya Kammpala Grupo
*First time reissue!* A wild and funky collection of Afro grooves that was ahead of its time in 1977 and has become a collector’s item in recent years, especially due to the growing international interest in Colombian picó sound system culture. Fruko and his studio bands Wganda Kenya and Kammpala Grupo treat us to a diverse set of African and Caribbean styles, laced with crazy synths, psychedelic guitar and infectious pan-African polyrhythms.
Cumbia De E.T. El Extraterrestre / El Regreso De E.T. El Extraterrestre
*First time reissue!* Two massive cumbias recorded in 1983 by Afrosound, the studio band fronted by Fruko and put together by Discos Fuentes in order to emulate the guitar-heavy tropical sounds emanating from Perú and Ecuador at the time. Heavy on space sounds and unexpected sonic tricks, these two songs were released as a tribute to E.T. aiming to take advantage of the pull of the film that year.
Psyché
Drop a needle on Psyché's debut double-sider and you'll see visions, or rather Mediterranean visions, be they of waves of heat shimmering above dunes of sand, or of women dancing around a bonfire on a rocky plain, or of bushy cliffs overlooking emerald-green and turquoise sea. The name Psyché is of course ancient Greek for 'soul' or 'mind', signifying the band's love of psychedelic funk, but also the wide range of Mediterranean influences – from Southern Europe to the Balkan Peninsula, and from …
Cumbia Mahàre / Ophis
Drop a needle on Psyché's debut double-sider and you'll see visions, or rather Mediterranean visions, be they of waves of heat shimmering above dunes of sand, or of women dancing around a bonfire on a rocky plain, or of bushy cliffs overlooking emerald-green and turquoise sea. The name Psyché is of course ancient Greek for 'soul' or 'mind', signifying the band's love of psychedelic funk, but also the wide range of Mediterranean influences – from Southern Europe to the Balkan Peninsula, and from …
Perú Selvático - Sonic Expedition Into The Peruvian Amazon 1972-1986
Tip! *In process of stocking* Less than a hundred miles inland from the capital city of Lima lies the great Peruvian jungle, an untamed land of impenetrable forests and endless winding rivers. In its isolated cities, cut off from the fashions of the capital, a unique style of music began to develop, inspired equally by the sounds of the surrounding forests, the roll of the mighty Amazon and Ucayali Rivers, and the rhythms of cumbia picked up from distant stations on transistor radios. With the a…
Sonido Verde de Moyobamba
Formed in 1980 by guitar prodigy Leonardo Vela Rodriguez, Sonido Verde de Moyobamba created some of the hardest, craziest Cumbia to emerge from the Peruvian jungle. With distorted, surf-addled guitar facing off against lysergic organ and hyperactive tropical rhythms, Sonido Verde conjured the organic sound of the dense forests surrounding their hometown while riding their dance-party grooves to dizzying psychedelic peaks.
Compiled by Analog Africa, Sonido Verde de Moyobamba presents eight ultra-…