This compilation is about three words: Peruvian boogaloo music.
Yet it’s really about the cross-pollination of ideas and the ways in which music can bounce around cultures and mutate into interesting new forms in the process. Boogaloo, already an incredible mutation originated in New York amongst the Cuban and Puerto Rican immigrants during the early sixties, an incredibly vibrant fusion of cultures, a collision of soul, jazz, R&B, rock and roll and mambo all fused into a crazy upbeat style. It arrived in Peru later in the decade, whose dance bands had been already been reared on Cuban dance music, tropical music from the Caribbean, American big bands, jazz and rock, so in a sense they were already halfway there. This compilation charts this brief period of boogaloo fever before cumbia and salsa would hit South America. Plundered from the vaults of the Peruvian label MAG and producer Manuel A. Guerrero Silvestre, Vampisoul have collected 26 of the most outlandish energetic and spicy tunes that existed between the heady years of 1967 and 1969. For many, Peruvian music has been limited to cliched notions of the panpipes, however i Gozalo is a sharp fun loving kick to the teeth of these preconceptions. The music is so smooth and funky, filled with incredible instrumental lines, with wacky percussion, searing trumpet and some crazy crazy vocals. Strange cocktail grooves alternate with grinding sax, Cuban shuffles, impossibly smooth Spanish vocalists, and killer handclaps. It’s gold. This is music that could never have come from anywhere else but the ’60s but the context and influences, the myriad of styles seamlessly fused into the one song almost defies description. It’s exhilarating stuff. The concept of Peruvian boogaloo music sounds like a kitsch curiosity, and whilst there are some elements of this, the execution is nothing short of jaw dropping… and ass shaking.
Bob Baker Fish
