When journalists in Lima want to write about Chicha, the psychedelic-meets-Amazon music once popular in Peru, ironically, they place a call to Brooklyn’s Chicha Libre. The Brooklyn band is reviving the style that was popular among Peruvian indigenous empowerment groups in the 1970s, but frowned down upon by the middle class and mainstream. Their debut album, Sonido Amazonico (to be released on Barbès Records on March 25), features cover songs from the era alongside originals arranged not only in the sound of the time, but using the spirit of Chicha’s syncretism.

Chicha is the name of a corn-based liquor favored by the Incas in pre-Colombian days – It is also the name given to a new wave of Peruvian cumbias, which started out in the Amazon in the 70’s. Cumbias Amazonicas, as they were first called, were loosely inspired by Colombian accordion-driven cumbias but incorporated the distinctive pentatonic scales of Andean melodies, some Cuban son, and the psychedelic sounds of surf guitars, farfisa organs and moog synthesizers.

The group includes musicians associated with the Barbès scene (a club co-owned by two of the musicians in the band: Olivier Conan and VIncent Douglas) and includes Joshua Camp (One Ring Zero) on Electravox; Olivier Conan (Las Rubias del Norte) on Cuatro and vocals; Bassist Nicholas (Combustible Edison), Guitarist Vincent Douglas (Bébé Eiffel) and veteran percussionists Greg Burrows (Andy Statman) and Timothy Quigley (Romashka, Zagnut Orkestar).

Copies of the cd’s will be on sale at the show.

Video manipulation by Lauren Petty and Shaun Irons.

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