Los Chinches
London, England, United Kingdom | INDIE
Music
Press
More radio play for Los Chinches, this time Huey Morgan champions the band. - BBC
BBC6 Music have been playing tracks from the Los Chinches album FONGO since February 2013:
26 February 2013: Fongo
5 March: Mueve Calor, http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01r2p9c
14 March: Ceviche (Con Choclo), http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01r79v5
19 March: Ceviche (con Choclo), http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01rbwsq - BBC
7 March (with Fiona Talkington): Mueve Calor opens the show. - BBC
Great news everybody! Los Chinches is releasing their debut album on April 1st, 2013. This is an album I know I have been waiting for for a very long time.
When I first encountered the music of Los Chinches I featured them here on Generation Bass. In a short period of time their music really caught on. With sounds echoing 70's pyschedelic Peruvian Chicha, these guys are our modern connection along with a small few that keep this unique historical sound alive and well - Generation Bass
Great news everybody! Los Chinches is releasing their debut album on April 1st, 2013. This is an album I know I have been waiting for for a very long time.
When I first encountered the music of Los Chinches I featured them here on Generation Bass. In a short period of time their music really caught on. With sounds echoing 70's pyschedelic Peruvian Chicha, these guys are our modern connection along with a small few that keep this unique historical sound alive and well - Generation Bass
Los Chinches – the band that began as a sweet dream in a jungle hut - will release their long-awaited debut album Fongo on 1 April (Movimientos Records). Drawing upon the retro style of Chicha from 1960s Peru, Los Chinches' epic new sound harnesses the psychedelic twists of Peruvian Cumbia as well as the Punk and Ska spirit of London. This, along with their rocking tropical energy, makes for blistering live performances interlaced with feverishly addictive melodies. Their sound stays faithful to the original bands from the era, such as Juaneco y Su Combo and Los Mirlos, whilst taking influences from 60s garage rock and surf guitar and bringing it bang up-to-date with a distinctly London attitude.
- World Music Network Audio Charts
Album review out now in print (April 2013) by Jamie Renton, plus it's included in their playlists; and CDs just in sections, with photos + track included in fRoots Radio April 2013 edition podcast: Fongo (online now http://www.podwireless.com and http://www.frootsmag.com/radio)
- fRoots
Sharing its name with a popular South American corn-based alcoholic drink, chicha is a musical style dating from late 1960s Peru, where hot cumbia rhythms sweat it out alongside pentatonic Andean melodies and groovy psychedelic fuzz. London-based Los Chinches seek to update that sound, bringing chippy ska rhythms and a festival-friendly energy to the retro style. Instrumentally, they’re very good indeed, particularly the Latin-American percussionists who propel the tunes in multiple directions across the dancefloor.
The Ventures-style surf guitar and rinky-dink Farfisa organ of ‘El Longing’ is irresistible, while ‘Mueve Calor’ succeeds in bringing something of the psychedelic spy movie vibe of The Specials’ second album to the Amazon. - The List
Los Chinches: Fongo (Movimientos Records)
British Latin fusion combo Los Chinches burst out of the London club scene. They’ve spent the past year gaining praise for their nightlife/festival live sets and are signed to the independent label Movimientos. Their multicultural, multi-instrumental line-up (spanning Britain, France, Peru and Columbia) whizzes up a joyous rabble of Peruvian cumbia or chicha folk roots, blended with 1960s psych-rock and surf riffs. It’s a warmly affectionate homage, with catchy wig-outs including Mueve Calor and the instrumental Chicha Love, and plenty of surreal humour... splendidly florid rhythms but Los Chinches capture the upbeat energy and fun that makes their live shows a treat. - London Metro
Los Chinches: Fongo (Movimientos Records)
British Latin fusion combo Los Chinches burst out of the London club scene. They’ve spent the past year gaining praise for their nightlife/festival live sets and are signed to the independent label Movimientos. Their multicultural, multi-instrumental line-up (spanning Britain, France, Peru and Columbia) whizzes up a joyous rabble of Peruvian cumbia or chicha folk roots, blended with 1960s psych-rock and surf riffs. It’s a warmly affectionate homage, with catchy wig-outs including Mueve Calor and the instrumental Chicha Love, and plenty of surreal humour... splendidly florid rhythms but Los Chinches capture the upbeat energy and fun that makes their live shows a treat. - London Metro
"...recapturing the spirit of the 1960s Peruvian style of chicha" - The Independent
Latin pop revivalism from London, from a band led by guitarist Gareth Finnegan, who claims he first heard chicha music in a riverside bar when he was lost in the Peruvian Amazon. The style was first developed in the late 1960s, when local bands started mixing Colombian cumbia with melodies from the Andes, along with the western surf music influences of twanging guitars and organ. Finnegan's band play new songs, with lyrics in English as well as Spanish, but reflect the good-time spirit of the music, with a lineup that includes four Latin American percussionists. Their debut album is as Day-Glo and brash as its cover, featuring wide-screen guitar instrumentals such as El Longing, and a keyboard-backed homage to cumbia, Be Still My Beating Corazon.
Robin Denselow - four stars - The Guardian
"They rock it out" - The Home Spun Show
"Chicha' cumbia with a splash of tropical rock n roll"…."top quality, danceable but with a touch of British style..." - Canalh
"Los Chinches is the band I wish to be a member of. Mixing Peruvian rhythms with UK based sounds..." Guero Unico - Generation Bass
"Everytime Los Chinches play at our venue they blow the roof off!" (Sophia Yates, Venue Owner & Programmer, The Hootananny - London Lifestyle Awards Best Live Music Venue 2011) - The Hootananny
"Los Chinches are amongst the best of the best of London’s wealth of Latin American style bands… tropical, Amazonian, psychedelic… guarantors of a great night out, of dancing and brilliant musicianship." Oliver Carruthers, Head of Programming, Rich Mix (Cultural Foundation & arts venue, London) - Rich Mix
The Chicha Fever keeps spreading and reaching new coasts. This time, all the way from London, England, we have a local band that pays tribute to the psychedelic Peruvian ’60s sound... - REMEZCLA MUSICA
"Los Chinches, the UK’s finest Peruvian cumbia band." - Sounds and Colours Magazine
Discography
"FONGO" - Debut Album 2013 on Movimientos Records
"La Serpiente Negra" - Single and Remixes 2012 on Movimientos Records
Photos
Bio
Drawing upon the retro style of Chicha from 1960s Peru, Los Chinches’ sound harnesses the psychedelic twists of Peruvian Cumbia as well as the Punk and Ska spirit of London. This, along with their rocking tropical energy, makes for blistering live performances interlaced with feverishly addictive melodies. Their sound stays faithful to the original bands from the era, such as Juaneco y Su Combo and Los Mirlos, whilst taking influences from 60s garage rock and surf guitar and bringing it bang up-to-date with a distinctly London attitude. Please see the links at the bottom of this page for their recent videos.
Los Chinches’ line-up reflects the melting pot of the city from which they emerge, and with Peruvian food and culture currently booming in the capital, now is the time for London’s very own Chicha band. Consisting of four Europeans (three from England, one from France) and four Latin American percussionists (three Peruvians and a Colombian), they offer up a unique blend of Chicha with hot Peruvian rhythms going head to head with the amped-up melodies of the London-born keyboard and guitar players.
Now in 2013, they're ready to unleash their debut album FONGO onto the world. The album, released April 2013, has had great reviews in the national press and repeated airplay on BBC Radio 6 and BBC Radio 3.
"A twangy, tangy mix of surf guitar and hardcore cumbia...this is no prissy-toned respectful revival, this is the real deal....A formidable live force"
Froots Magazine
"A joyous rabble of Peruvian cumbia or chicha folk roots, blended with 1960s psych-rock and surf riffs."
London Metro
"Their debut album is as Day-Glo and brash as its cover featuring wide screen guitar instrumentals... and a keyboard backed homage to cumbia."
**** The Guardian
The album title, 'FONGO', Los Chinches explain, is taken from the name of "a mysterious deity, a visionary and a clown with a taste for jungle liquor and Amazonian beauties". It is, they continue, "through Fongo that we channel the spirit of Chicha who acts as a spiritual councillor and a guide for Los Chinches. We ask Fongo to bless us all with good vibrations. There is a Fongo in all of us and our quest is to bring out the spirit of Fongo in everyone who hears our sound. I am Fongo...you are Fongo...we are all Fongo!"
Since forming in 2009, Los Chinches have blazed a trail across the London scene at an eclectic array of club nights, folk events and rock’n’ roll venues. They have been part of the prestigious Latin music festival La Linea with a performance at the Barbican, they’ve packed dance floors at venues such as Cargo and Rich Mix and they’ve rocked festival stages at Glastonbury, Bestival, The Big Chill and WOMAD. Last year, whilst working on the album, their busy schedule included a tour in the Netherlands, a show at BT London Live (Victoria Park) alongside Ska Cubano and a sell-out gig at the Village Underground in Shoreditch. The Los Chinches 2013 UK Tour kicks off in March.
Links
