El Relincho Del Tiempo
This week finds us in a strange mood, which may just be that effect the month of November has, with the year slowly but surely coming to an end, temperatures and humanity in decline and what not. But then again, we always have that thing called music to pick us up again, that instant mood-changer there to set us on the right path or quite frankly take us far far away from here. How about Argentina?
Today, we travel to Curuzù Cuatiá, a city in the northeastern Argentinian province of Corrientes, known as 'El Litoral'. Among this city's inhabitants is a group by the name of Los Siquicos Litoraleños (The Psychics of El Litoral), who popped up on our radar last year with their "Medianos Éxitos Subtropicales Vol.1" album on Italian imprint Artetetra and absolutely weirded us out, in a good way that is.
Luckily for us, the collective dropped volume number two "Medianos Éxitos Subtropicales Vol.2: El Relincho Del Tiempo" in October on Brighton's sure-handed Hive Mind Records and that turned out to be just the remedy we needed. Not that it made us feel any less strange about what it was we were actually listening to, but the group's unique brand of "mind-bending folklore" definitely opened our chakras to the lighter side of being.
"In this remote region, cut off from the fashions of the city, Los Siquicos were able to nurture their obsessions, hone their craft, and develop a singular style that takes the traditional chamamé folk music of rural Argentina, then throws it in a blender with Latin-American cumbia and chicha, the tropicalia of Os Mutantes and Tom Ze, the free music of Sun Ra, Captain Beefheart, The Residents, UFO conspiracies, radical philosophy, and a strong dose of the absurd," the release notes read.
And indeed, as if beckoning from some parallel universe, Los Siquicos Litoraleños entwine us in their twisted soundscapes of viscous, hallucinogenic "soupy dub-cumbia", inviting us to join in their "shamanic" hoopla and joie de vivre that happen to be just what the healer prescribed... Stream the full release and watch the trailer below.
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