The Psy-Fi Recommends Cumbia Albums To Janszoon Thread
 

Please, Psy-Fi, I want some recs!

:laughing: I was actually going to start a cumbia thread today.

Okay, to start with, here's a newer 9-piece instrumental cumbia group from Mexico City, Mexico named "Sonido Gallo Negro" which translates to "Black Rooster Sound" in English. The name of the album is "Sendero Mistico" (Mystic Path) and features a psychedelic sound running throughout the album along with some chica, and surf music blended into the mix. This is their second of three albums they've released so far since 2011...

Wow! Just listening to bits and pieces of the YouTube video and it sounds amazing. I dig the combo of the psychedelic/chicha and surf elements in there. Seems like great driving at night music.

^ I dig everything I've heard by them so far. All three of their albums are worth a listen (the third one due for an April release date, has several tracks already uploaded to YouTube.)

Here's one I posted several days ago in another thread... La Delio Valdez, a 14-piece cumbia group from Buenos Aires, Argentina.
This is their self-titled debut album released in 2012, which has a much more traditional cumbia sound than the previously mentioned cumbia group "Sonido Gallo Negro."

Here's a compilation of various 70's Peruvian cumbia groups with mostly psych/garage-rock influences as well as a couple of soul & funk influenced songs. The CD version has 18 tracks rather than the 16 tracks shown here. Mostly original songs with a couple of recognizable covers...

Here's an album combining cumbia with dub. Cumbia group "Frente Cumbiero" (from Bogotá, Colombia) collaborating with Guyanese dub music producer and engineer "Mad Professor" (Neil Joseph Stephen Fraser.)
The first 26 minutes of the album is cumbia which gives way to a cumbia/dub combination for the rest of the album. Several Bogotá-based artists such as Liliana Saumet (Bomba Estéreo), Javier Fonseca (Alerta Kamarada), Kiño (Kmusic) and Shaun Turner also appear on the album.

Here's a group from Peru that makes ample use of the surf guitar sound. Los Diablos Rojos (The Red Devils), if The Ventures had been from Peru, I imagine they might have sounded like this.
I'm not sure if the bikini-clad woman on the album cover was in the band at the time as a musician or a dancer or was just put on the cover to give the album a bit of sex appeal.
I haven't been able to find a release date for the album but looking at catalog numbers from the record label, it appears to have been released sometime between 1970 & 1971 and, based on that observation, also appears to have been the band's debut album.
This album "Al Rojo Vivo" (Red Hot) was appropriately titled, as this is a smoking hot album from start to finish. For a good dose of cumbia with that surf guitar sound, I highly recommend giving this one a listen.

Digital cumbia

Another cumbia group from Buenos Aires, Argentina. The 7-piece "Agrupación Ilegal Los Imparciales" with their third album "El Sonidero" (The Sound) which was released in 2016.
There are several different cumbia styles on display throughout the album. Primarily, Peruvian cumbia (chicha) with the Farfisa organ combined with electric guitars as well as the "spaghetti western" sound which is also a hallmark of the chicha sound.