Imagine a mix between the soundtrack of a Latin American shantytown and that of San Francisco’s Haight Ashbury district in the late ’60s. Add repetitive motifs and occasional punk accents. The result is the second album from Los Pirañas, a supergroup from the underground scene in Bogotá, Colombia’s metropolis.
This instrumental, soaring music rattles the cage and moves furiously. And subtly too.
These Pirañas, or carnivorous fish, are made up of three well-known members of the Colombian electronic cumbia scene: guitarist Eblis Alvarez, leader of the group Meridian Brothers, bassist Mario Galeano, from the group Frente Cumbiero, and drummer and percussionist Pedro Ojeda, from the group Romperayo.
All these Bogotá-based bands are credited with taking Cumbia, the emblematic Colombian style that has invaded the whole of Latin America, into more experimental and unpredictable zones, including electronica, jazz and rock.
On Una Oportunidad más de Triunfar en la Vida, the three musicians, who have known each other since they were teenagers and have flirted with punk-rock, African music and jazz during their long careers, let themselves be drawn into a week-long jam session, resulting in eight instrumental pieces.
The symbiosis between percussion, guitars (sometimes with multiple loops), electronic effects and inventive bass is obvious. It’s a deluge of spontaneous creativity, with grooves that are sometimes dissonant, but always danceable. The three comparses share their energy and obvious pleasure with us.
Some of you, accustomed to more traditional Latin music, might say that this isn’t really Latin. But you can hear cumbia and other rhythms from the region.
But it’s Latin avant-garde, you might say. And it’s exciting!
There are some extremely interesting and promising things happening in the Bogota studios. We’ll be back.
