ZZK Sound Vol. 1 - Cumbia Digital
Various Artists
review by orator
Welcome to ZZK Records, record label for Zizek, the famous night club in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and pioneers in what is called Digital Cumbia. Cumbia is a traditional folk music of Columbia and has as of late been adapted by musicians throughout South America (and now throughout the world) and integrated with modern production techniques in order to answer the international call for truly progressive, culture-melding music. This compilation, released in September of 2008, samples some of the best tracks from the digital cumbia scene down in South America. Many of these artists subsequently released albums on ZZK. While they all under the category of Digital Cumbia they are subject to the subgenres found throughout all of electronic music, ranging from ambient downtempo to latin hiphop. I’ve broken it down track by track. Overall this compilation is great for DJs looking for tracks to layer during live mixes.
01 Chancha Vía Circuito ft. Kumbha Kethu – Bosque [90 BPM]
Epitome of digital cumbia. Soft Latin female vocals, shuffle feel with tribal percussion and electronica style flares
02 Fauna – Canibal [94 BPM]
Percussive track with Latin hiphop (hyphy chorus)
Nim ft. Maestroshao – Anticumbia [93 BPM]
Upbeat Latin hiphop focusing on percussion and bass
03 Oro11 – El Cangrejo [90 BPM]
Instrumental, trip hop & uk.garage inspired beat, acoustic latin percussion with glitchy repeating phrases
04 Marcelo Fabián – Sed de mal [100 BPM]
Glitchy, post-electronica style instrumental beat with emotional phrasing. Excellent sound design. Recommended.
05 El Hijo de la Cumbia – La Mara Tomasa [93 BPM]
instrumental beat with repeating synthesized strings and vocal samples
06 Frikstailers – Onda Miercolera [87 BPM]
Cutup glitched out hip hop style instrumental. Recommended.
07 El Remolón ft. Los Putxos – Pikatxu [98 BPM]
Upbeat lounge party beat with 4tothefloor and sporadic vocoder, chill/downtempo influenced
08 Imi & Zooey – Qwerty Tropical [93 BPM]
90s- electronic take on classic latin flavors
09 El Trip Selector – Coombia del Piano Triste [86 BPM]
upbeat percussive instrumental track with repeating sawtooth bassline and bell/electric organ. Awesome track. Recommended.
10 King Coya – Cumbiatrón [83 BPM]
percussive sawtooth track with processed vocals starting around 1:30, droning texture
11 The Peronists – Cumbión (Instrumental) [97 BPM]
Spacing percussive beat with odd sounds and textures chiming in almost at random until it comes together with a somewhat melodic phrase, in essence loops building upon one another continuously. Recommended for live mixes.
12 Caballeros con Descuento – El Francés [85 BPM]
Loungy tropical shuffle with slow almost droning male vocals. staticy distorted effects come on and off on several layers and noticable white noise percussion. Only sense of melody is in chorus that drops around 2:00 in.
13 Axel K Soundsystem – Cumbietón Rutero [80 BPM]
slow yet upbeat instrumental with American western/cowboy-inspired (gaucho) guitars and focus on accordion for melodic phrasing.
14 Fantasma – Cumbia que pega [90 BPM]
Pop electronic cumbia with rapping and pop singing.
15 Princesa – Con la misma moneda (Chancha Vía Circuito Remix) [91 BPM]
Bouncing bass with diverse styles of rapping using synthesized xylophone/steel drum for melody. Catchy chorus. Recommended.
16 Deadmenems – Talibán del Amor (Remolón Remix) [106 BPM]
European trance inspired phrasing of synths with South American percussion. Electronic accordion supplies phrasing in the higher ranges along with lo-fi male rap singing. Catchy. Recommended.