Chicha Libre - ¡Sonido Amazonico! 2LP NEW. SEALED. Barbes Records Barbès Records released Sonido Amazonico! - Chicha Libre’s debut album - Ten years ago. The label had already made a splash the year before with the release of The Roots of Chicha - the very first time Peruvian psychedelic cumbia was anthologized for a foreign audience. The compilation quickly became a cult album and contributed to popularize a style of music that until then had been scorned by the Peruvian middle class. While loosely inspired by Colombian cumbia, chicha incorporated Andean melodies, some Cuban son, and the sounds of surf guitars, Farfisa organs and Moog synthesizers: an oddly post-modern combination of western psychedelia, Latin rhythms, regional music and vintage rock. Barbès owner and Roots of Chicha producer Olivier Conan, not satisfied with the sole release of vintage tracks, wanted to explore the music further. With the help of keyboardist Joshua Camp and guitarist Vincent Douglas, he created Chicha Libre as a means to explore and transform a music that had fallen out of favor with younger people. Chicha Libre’s sound and approach were completely indebted to the Peruvian bands it originally emulated. Like their mentors, they used surf guitar, organ sounds and Latin percussion to play a mixture of borrowed and homegrown sounds - but they had no qualms in adding their own foreign and personal touches. Their borrowings differed from that of their Peruvian precursors – with bits of classical music and pop debris from three continents - and, with little desire to remain authentic, they quickly started experimenting. After all, the Latin rhythms that formed the basis of the music were almost as foreign to them as they were to the Shipibo Indians who first took up the electric guitar. When Chicha Libre released Sonido Amazonico, the band had been playing a regular gig at barbès, their Brooklyn home base, and done a few out of town shows - but while they hoped that people would like the record , they didn’t have much expectations. Against all odds, the record turned out to do quite well and was picked up by Crammed Disc in Europe, and a l
