Sometimes you just want to hear things arranged in such a way that nothing about them sounds familiar. In fact, it’s bit like booking a holiday where you only know where you are going upon arrival: a world without signposts, translation manuals, traffic signals or tourist advice centres. Someplace you can drive on the wrong side of the road, wear outrageous combinations of clothes and generally go about life in a random, and desultory manner. It’s not about being isolated, alienated or just stunned, it’s about disrupting the usual flow of info coming in and then out of your ears. It’s about deautomating the experience, slowing it down, doing something a little unexpected and generally thinking outside the box. The best visual comparison I can offer is composing a picture in which dogs are doing all the things human should be doing and humans are doing all the things dogs should be doing. It just forces you stop and assess the whole thing afresh. And the same could be said for ‘Mejico Maxico’ from Mexican Institute of Sound, the latest from Camilo Lara – by day Head of EMI Mexico and by night, playful, maverick artist in the mould of Fourtet’s Kieran Hebden and the UK’s Lemon Jelly.
Originally released on the Spanish label Lovemonk in 2006, ‘Mejico Maxico’ pulls all the hustle and bustle of life into the city and splices it with fragments of organs, cha cha, sixties kitsch, hip-hop, flip-flop, belly drop, camp retro and Joe Meek era sound effects in addition to wave after wave of traditional Latin beats.
Music to watch wacky space alien girls by.
MEXICAN INSTITUTE OF SOUND – ‘MEJICO MAXICO’ RELEASED 05.05.08