Peru was an absolute hotbed of garage rock activity during the 1960s, and one of the finest bands to come out of the country at the time were Los Yorks. Perhaps not as savage as some of their contemporaries, they were still able to write some mean hooks while writing their own material alongside some choice covers.
Legends in Peru, the band Mita y su Adentro were led by Oswaldo “Mita” Delgado, also had a prestigious reputation in the Latin American music world, as he would be invited to perform in the bands of Célia Cruz and Joe Cuba. Sadly, he never recorded another album after this one.
repsychled Records out of Peru are known for releasing scorching garage rock from their native country, but they have dipped their fingers until the shimmering pools of South Korean psychedelic music as well. Shin Joong Hyun is considered South Korea’s ‘godfather of rock’, and he has been comfortable working not only with psych but with folk-rock, pop and soul. This particular album with done with Yup Juns, his backing band, and you can hear influences from blues rock to Jimi Hendrix in this disc.
Buh Records out of Peru has released a compilation which serves as a snapshot of Lima’s grimy techno scene. From the label’s Bandcamp site: “The title of this compilation is inspired by the name of a concert held in Lima in 1991, considered to be the first techno concert to have taken place in Peru. Even though not all intervening groups were doing techno at that time, they did share the fact that they all used keyboards. Four of them, however (Cuerpos del Deseo, Ensamble, Círculo Interior and Reacción), were in fact affiliated to an electronic sound (techno-pop, EBM). The…
Repsychled Records is based in Peru, and has done great work documenting their psychedelic rock scene. This particular one is a weird treasure from 2019. Culto al Qondor bring the freakiest of Krautrock to South America with two 14-minute tracks of pure drone-laced music inspired by bands like Ash Ra Tempel or Amon Düül II. Really good music.
What we have here is an experimental music supergroup. Makoto Kawabata and Hiroshi Higashi of acid-psych lords Acid Mothers Temple team up with the legendary guitarist Richard Pinhas (famed as the leader of the band Heldon, and still very much active under his own name). Joining them are two musicians from Peru in Manongo Mujica and Juan Luis Pereira who fill out this psychedelic soundscape. For some context regarding this release, read these notes for the band’s Bandcamp site: When Acid Mothers Temple and Richard Pinhas visited Lima for the first time, in November 2017, to participate in the experimental…
jhusel · Los Saicos – Fugitivo de Alcatraz I’d like to point you, dear readers, to a magnificent blog called The Listening Post. Each post includes a new song of the day, and this one is a treasure out of Peru from what many fans call the first proto-punk band, Los Saicos. You can read the blog here.