For a solid decade, the Lima-based duo of Rafael Pereira and Felipe Salmon have been the bêtes noires of cumbia’s digital revival, their reworking of vintage styles and lost-classic tracks deliberately dyslexic, even damaged and a bit deranged. That’s saying something, given the outlandish characters populating the movement. A penchant for electro-witchdoctor costumes adds to their outré mystique, as does their graphic aspect, artwork that’s an equatorial equivalent of Pushead, king of the heavy metal t-shirt.
The 10-year milestone must have struck them as a good excuse to review their discography, and to finally get some of their favourite, most thoroughly dancefloor-tested tracks out on vinyl. The wax is going fast, so newcomers slow on the draw may have to be appeased with the digital format, for this and the second EP, released coincidentally (the final third is on its way).
Each of the EPs is a grab bag of assorted remixes and rarities. Humos Vol. 1 covers their early days, when their focus was on cumbia and Amazonian chicha (the opening remix of Los Mirlos, for instance). Its successors cover DDD’s dives into zouk, Angolan batida, and other stuff, always in their distinctively demented, yet convincingly catchy manner.
