Huelepega Sound System

Toronto’s outre cumbia collective Huelepega Soundsystem are named after Mexican and Venezuelan glue-sniffers (who also have an eponymous film), therefore term the hazily elongated music they make “Doombia.” On this “Amor Doombiambero” mixtape, made in anticipation of their next album, the rhythm experimenters tease up their original songs into a muted full experience that sounds like wandering in the desert with heatstroke, drugged out and pleasantly terrifying, an audio representation of the illest parts of Latin America and, to that end, an indirect political statement in itself.
- The FADER

Huelepega Sound System has no real home, but could easily find themselves smoking out with them fellers from Sublime Frequencies. Because this music is so unique and peculiar, I’m going to be incredibly lazy and appropriate their own words from their Myspace page (http://www.myspace.com/huelepegasoundsystem):

Huelepega Sound System pega Sound System would like to introduce you to “doombia” – cumbia’s dissolute cousin. This might not get you on the dancefloor, but it just might get you off the couch. This music starts with chopped and screwed Colombia-via-Mexican cumbia, with beats slowed down to a spooky, unsettling tempo. Live congas and timbales reinforce the rhythms, while droning keyboards and ricocheting vocal samples open up the sound. Everything gets mixed down in extreme dub. Tempos are subdivided and multiplied – folding the grooves inward and outward, messing with your expectations. The flow rambles and lurches, with dissonance buzzing throughout. To paraphrase the motto of Putumayo Records, doombia is “music guaranteed to make you feel stoned”. There are many different tangents in contemporary Latin music, but few explore such dark territory. Huelepega (named after the glue huffers of Monterrey and Caracas) bring an aggressive lack of polish to their sound. But don’t think that the Huelepegistas don’t know how to play – all four have channelled decades of DJing and performing into creating this startling new sound. Their forthcoming CDR “En Los Ojos De Dios, Todos Somos Ilegales” will be released in March 2009 on Toronto’s acclaimed noise label, Inyrdisk. It’s a natural partnership – Huelepega takes its place alongside such Toronto experimentalists as Women In Tragedy and Disguises to build a greater overstanding of just how alternative Latin music can get. Huelepega Sound System is a reflection and abstraction of the many sonic forces at work in the Latin diaspora in North America. Huelepega isn’t the music you heard in the resort on your last vacation, on the contrary, Huelepega is music from the gutter, inspired by the dark places of Latin America that the consulate warned you about. Huelepega is for ‘los desplazados, los olvidados y los desaparecidos’.

Okay, now that I totally plagiarized their shit, this is one of the most amazingly strange recordings I’ve heard in some time. And I live for weird. I’ve been working on an article about records I’ve listened to for 20 or more years, and this young’un will be there….20 years from now. This is an ineffable experience. 10/10 -- P. Somniferum (16 June, 2009) - Foxy Digitalis

Next up a post from DJ Rupture and crew at the excellent La Congona blog put me on to a group called Huelepega Sounsdsytem, which is apparently a collective of weirdo Latin musicians and intellectual types who all ended up in Toronto. They take the dubby trend in cumbia rebajadas to a level that’s almost not cumbia anymore and appropriately they call it doombia, by their own description the bastard child of Andres Landero and African Headcharge. This is the track that caught my ear, a particularly mindfucked version of Rod Stewart’s “If You Think I’m Sexy” (which is itself a rip-off of the wordless hook of Jorge Ben’s amazing Disco Brasil classic “Taj Mahal” educate yourself). Anyway to answer their musical query: Yes. We think you’re freaky.

- Eddie "Stats" Houghton - The FADER

Toronto’s Huelepega Sound System combine cumbia and dub, producing a psychedelic sonic stew that is as creepy as it is compelling. Brothers Amadeo and Ernesto Ventura on keys and percussion, DJ Sergio Elmir and electronics whiz (and EYE WEEKLY contributor) David Dacks have recorded an album of disorienting, downtempo originals in a style they’ve dubbed “doombia”. The disc, En Los Ojos De Dios, Todos Somos Ilegales, is being feted here.

-by Denise Benson - Eye Weekly

Experimentation is vital for every genre, and cumbia is no exception!! Coming from Colombia, i didn’t expect to find the most extravagant cumbia ensemble here in Canada!!!

This is one of those bands that their record not necessarily reflect what you see live… they’re insane!!

- by Caballo - Generation Bass