South American music and culture magazine

It was 2010 when I first discovered 1977. No that’s not the opening line from a young adult, time-travel novel; its when a good friend sat me down and showed me Ana Tijoux’s breakout album, 1977.  I was instantly enthralled with this strong female voice spitting Spanish stanzas over hard-hitting beats, becoming hooked as this French Chilean rapera started to gain traction as an international artist. Continue Reading

“Tengo tres días que no como, cuatro que no bebo agua.”  “It’s been three days since I’ve eaten; four days since I’ve drank water.” This opening line from my favorite track, “Macaco” sums up my listening experience of Novalima’s Karimba. Continue Reading

World music label Putumayo has a noble but tricky mission. It aims “to introduce new global music to broad audiences” with ethnic-themed aggregations. This objective is challenging from a business standpoint. Any good introduction to a new music genre should aim to get listeners hooked and wanting more. But once your audience has educated itself and started down its own path of musical discovery, World Music 101-type albums may no longer appeal to their newly developed tastes. Continue Reading

A Useful Life is a new Uruguayan film that continues an aesthetic started by Whisky and 25 Watts, two classic Latin American films directed by fellow Uruguayans Juan Pablo Rebella and Pablo Stoll. The dry humour is there, as is the unlikely choice of leading actors and use of black and white, as well as a story that revels in everyday life. It shouldn’t be too surprising then that the director Federico Veiroj worked as a scriptwriter on those films. Continue Reading

Global music moguls Soundway Records have released another bag of Colombian treats with The Original Sound of Cumbia: The History of Colombian Cumbia & Porro As Told By The Phonograph 1948-79. This time round, we are introduced to the musical sensations of cumbia and porro – both styles richly embedded within Colombian heritage and its diverse soundscape. Continue Reading

Los Pirañas is a side project of members of Frente Cumbiero and Meridian Brothers, two of Colombia’s most interesting bands. From the first beat of the opening track it’s quite clear that Los Pirañas is a vehicle for them to try out some of their most far-out ideas. There’s thumping drums, a bassline that’s quite simply a relentless New York No Wave onslaught and guitars that sound alternately like elastic and metal, together making a sound that you might want to call “tropical noise”. Continue Reading

Las Acacias is a film in which the plot alone does not represent the film. Which is a good thing, as the story of an Argentine truck driver who gives a Paraguayan women and her child a lift to Buenos Aires does not in itself sound too promising. Where Las Acacias succeeds is in the moments and relationship that builds during this journey, and which results in the film being one of the most charming of the year. Continue Reading

Ever wondered what it would sound like if Sao Paulo’s underground scene decamped to the US, joined up with a number of jazz musicians and hip-hop MCs, and attempted their own unique version of Sly & The Family Stone? Ekundayo is pretty much what that would sound like. Continue Reading

Upside Down is a follow-up of sorts to Visions of Dawn. That album, which featured the trio of Joyce, Mauricio Maestro and Nana Vasconcelos, was recorded in 1976 but lay unreleased until 2009, when Far Out Recordings decided to release it. Upon it’s release it seemed to instantly jump to “classic” status, and so Far Out asked Maestro and Vasconcelos to record a follow-up. This is what they came up with. Continue Reading

I’m not convinced Pachamama – meaning Mother Earth – is an apt title for this film. There are certainly many glimpses of nature, and the relationship between man and nature on this road trip through Brazil, Peru and Bolivia, but it’s the sense of political unrest in the last two of these countries which really has the greatest impact. Continue Reading

The Viaje EP starts with a murmur before guiding itself into life. This is a release all about travelling, full of inquisitive notes, open-ended melodies and a restless sense of invention. It’s the third EP that Venezuelan group Dolli have released this year and definitely one of their best. Continue Reading

The element that unites all the best music documentaries – a pack led by Stop Making Sense and The Last Waltz – is a feeling of experiencing a moment of music at it’s creative zenith. Our Latin Thing must therefore join this illustrious company. It’s documentation of a performance from the Fania All-Stars in a New York club in 1974, captures some of the Latin world’s musicians at the top of their game. Continue Reading