Money Chicha

Money Chicha, as you might guess from the name, make chicha (or Peruvian cumbia, depending on your preferred nomenclature). It’s a style of music influenced by both traditional Suramericana music and guitar-drenched surf and psychedelic rock from the ‘60s. If you’re looking for a psychedelic trip to top off your end of week, look no further. Here’s an hour-odd collection of instrumental scuzz, percussive glory, and monumental guitar. It’s a wonderful mezcla of two fields which are incredible on their own, and Echo en Mexico proves that they sound great when combined.

“On Echo en Mexico we took what we learned from playing in the contemporary Latin orchestra format with Grupo Fantasma and the more psychedelic Funk rock style of Brownout,” says the band. “We blended it with the classic chicha sound, added a pinch of our South Texas/North Mexico border flavor and let it simmer.”

Read more: http://www.popmatters.com/post/money-chicha-echo-en-mexico-album-stream-premiere/#ixzz4IAuobhZN - PopMatters

Este nuevo viaje sonoro propuesto por los amigos de la Red de Periodistas Musicales en Iberoamérica para los lectores de Zona de Obras ofrece cuatro paradas. La primera es en Austin, Tejas, desde donde nos llega el disco de debut de Money Chicha y su irresistible cumbia psicodélica, presentado por Betto Arcos; la segunda nos lleva hasta Buenos Aires –aunque haciendo escala técnica en Nigeria–, donde la gente de Korobá mixtura afrobeat, dub y psicodelia en su flamante álbum, recomendado por Humphrey Inzillo; la tercera nos transporta hasta Bogotá, donde nos espera Luis Daniel Vega para destacar Ciudad bipolar, último trabajo del jazzero Nicolás Rojas Vallejo; y por último llegamos a Quito, donde Ga Robles nos habla de la fina y mestiza música post-colonial creada por el trío del pianista Daniel Mancero. Ahora toca darle al play y disfrutar. - zonadeobras.com

Every week we get the latest music that you should be listening to. This week, music journalist Steve Hochman, who started by introducing us to a band called Money Chicha. Here they are performing live.

Money Chicha is an off-shoot of Austin, Texas’ Grupo Fantasma. They make a wide range of exciting Latin-rooted music — salsa, boogaloo, merengue, even some wild Led Zep covers. They even got hired by Prince to be his band at a Golden Globes party a decade ago. But even that can’t contain its musicians’ full desires for exploration, so it’s spawned some spin-offs: Brownout, for one, is a tight Latin-funk act.

Money Chicha dives into psychedelic cumbia, with great results.Their all-instrumental debut album “Echo en Mexico” (love the play on words of the title) echoes not just Mexico, but perhaps even more the ‘60s and ‘70s variations of Colombia, Peru and elsewhere in Latin America. It’s a style known for its loping beats, burbling folk percussion and stinging, elastic electric guitar lines. Call it Andean surf music. Never mind that there aren’t any beaches in the Andes.

Opening track “Lamento en la selva” (“Lamentation in the woods”) digs back to 1973 for a song by Peruvian band Los Mirlos, a staple of the compilations of this music, which have proliferated in recent years, popular among world music nuts and hip deejays alike. Money Chicha doesn’t reinvent the form — heck, one song is even titled “Cumbia Familiar.” But its approach is, well, money.

As for chicha, it’s a potent beverage which we last cited in March via the song “Chicha Roja” by Argentine “nu cumbia” artist La Yegros. Here we get a song “Chicha Negra,” musically a raw, clip-clop cadence with an almost circus sounding guitar line. And then there’s the title, song, which almost could be a theme for a Colombian spy movie, just enough mystery and mystique — we’ll take that chicha shaken, not stirred. - scrp.org

Listening to Money Chicha feels a bit like taking a hit of acid, downing a couple shots of Tequila, and hopping a plane to 1960s Peru. If that particular combination of drugs and time travel sounds even a little interesting, you owe it to yourself to spend some time with this unique Austin band. Nominally a mildly alcoholic beverage popular with workers across South America, Chicha became synonymous with a distinctive genre of music that mixes the distorted guitar sounds of American psychedelic rock with traditional Colombian cumbia. Now combine that heady brew with a little South Texas swagger and some bruising Latin funk and you’ll get a feel for Money Chicha’s music. Sounds pretty crazy, right? That’s because it is. It’s the kind of music that rewires your brain, awakens your spirit animal, and takes you places you’ve never been. - KUTX 98.9 Austin

Chicha is a beverage made from maize, sometimes fermented and sometimes not, popular in Central and South America. It’s also a Peruvian derivative of cumbia, fused with elements of psychedelic rock and surf, as well as the Peruvian highlands’ folk music/dance genre huayno. Hugely popular in the (you guessed it) ’60s, chicha music still captures the imaginations and mystical yearnings of folks across continents and generations. Comprising members of Grupo Fantasma and Brownout, ATX’s Money Chicha rep this far-out style with mind-bending alacrity, blending in their own touches of extra fuzz and raging percussion. - San Antonio Current