La Mecanica "Arbol" screwed salsa
La Mecanica "Arbol" screwed salsa
The new wave Nueva York sound of La Mecánica Popular is describe by the band themselves as "psychedelic salsa" but this track "Arbol"--which premiered Friday on our Caribbean channel LargeUp--definitely ventures into the dubbier tempo of cumbia rebejadas and the Congolese highlife guitar sound favored by the AfroColombian selectors of the Champeta soundsystem circuit. Maybe screwed salsa is closer. LargeUp has the whole story. Read more, listen below and click true to download...
La Mecánica Popular first caught our attention earlier this fall with their smart “La Paz Del Freak” video, a playful snapshot of Latin NYC life, past and present. The band, which hails from NYC by way of various Latin American ports of call, is on a mission to reinvigorate salsa with a sound experimental enough to deserve its own name, but traditional enough to pass purists’ test.
They call it “psychedelic salsa,” and we have a hard time thinking of a better way to describe it. As none other than Bobbito Garcia put it, “La Mecánica Popular is the most refreshing attempt at maintaining salsa’s integrity while introducing a completely new, unprecedented sound that I’ve ever heard.”
Ahead of the impending Nov. 18 release of their debut album (you can pre-order limited-edition vinyl here) on Names You Can Trust, they’ve given us another track, “Arbol,” to premiere. This one’s even more trippy, and a bit slower, but not too slow that you and your partner can’t get your copa on to it.
