Doombia! Huelepega Sound System
by Benoit. March 21st, 2009
Huelepega sound system
My friend Guillaume (Khiasma) received this week an interesting mixtape titled Los Ojos De Dios, Todos Somos Ilegales from a group of Toronto (Canada) who do experimental cumbia remix, Huelepega Sound System!
It’s really experimental stuff. They remix some cumbia rebajadas and slow it down again! They Call it Doombia!
This might not get you on the dancefloor, but it just might get you off the couch. This music starts with chopped and screwed Colombia-via-Mexican cumbia, with beats slowed down to a spooky, unsettling tempo. Live congas and timbales reinforce the rhythms, while droning keyboards and ricocheting vocal samples open up the sound. Everything gets mixed down in extreme dub. Tempos are subdivided and multiplied – folding the grooves inward and outward, messing with your expectations. The flow rambles and lurches, with dissonance buzzing throughout. To paraphrase the motto of Putumayo Records, doombia is “music guaranteed to make you feel stoned”. There are many different tangents in contemporary Latin music, but few explore such dark territory. Huelepega (named after the glue huffers of Monterrey and Caracas) bring an aggressive lack of polish to their sound. But don’t think that the Huelepegistas don’t know how to play – all four have channelled decades of DJing and performing into creating this startling new sound. Their forthcoming CDR “En Los Ojos De Dios, Todos Somos Ilegales” will be released in March 2009 on Toronto’s acclaimed noise label, Inyrdisk. It’s a natural partnership – Huelepega takes its place alongside such Toronto experimentalists as Women In Tragedy and Disguises to build a greater overstanding of just how alternative Latin music can get. Huelepega Sound System is a reflection and abstraction of the many sonic forces at work in the Latin diaspora in North America. Huelepega isn’t the music you heard in the resort on your last vacation, on the contrary, Huelepega is music from the gutter, inspired by the dark places of Latin America that the consulate warned you about. Huelepega is for ‘los desplazados, los olvidados y los desaparecidos’.
Do Ya Think I’m Freaky – Huelepega Sound System
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Tags: Cumbia Experimental
March 23rd, 2009 at 14:51
the power of glue?
glue-mind empowerment music?
March 27th, 2009 at 11:51
Love this syrup. For a little more speedy business, perk up your orejitas, here comes the cumbia-donk: http://audiopoverty.de/?p=1004
March 30th, 2009 at 13:48
I love this.. It takes rebajabas one step deeper into a mud puddle. Gracias!
April 3rd, 2009 at 05:13
Chug chug howl howl float float unh unh hmmm hmmm bring on the sticky percussive madness wow i love this shit…….
african head charge had something like this on songs of praise i think that was used in some freak out ‘buffalo hunting’ scene in Lynch’s “wild at heart”…..
….this is the straight sticky mud puddle though i won’t be washing off this mud anytime soon…
April 1st, 2010 at 11:02
No my friend, Huele does not mean power, it means smell. What they are most likely referencing is glue sniffing.
Huele pega – smell glue.