Finally, from Peter, and translating as “Wood Chips”…
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[6.71]
Peter Mathison: All your grooves are belong to Mariana Yegros. Being a yanqui I can’t really situate this within nu-cumbia, or nu-cumbia within current Latin American soundscapes. Still, I submit that it’s a big deal that this woman (the only female artist on Buenos Aires’ American expat-founded ZZK records) with roots in Argentina’s oft-neglected Northern provinces is making this music, finding an audience, and generally killing it. All I can really do is list the reasons why I love this: 1) the voice — agridulce, like the lyric says; 2) the little_whoosh_ that propels the 2 and 4 counts; 3) that menacing accordion line; 4) expert cowbell deployment; 5) the less-is-more drop that you’re not sure is ever going to arrive but when it does provides a better payoff than 100 Guetta drops; 6) the lightly political lyrics that resolve to just keep dancing/crying; 7) Revenge of the Treesnot.
[10]
David Sheffieck: Fantastic rhythm work here, along with a subtly fascinating bassline (which counterintuitively may be the song’s real source of propulsion.) I love how willing Yegros is to let the track just play out – and how whenever she jumps back in, her voice effortlessly cuts through the clatter.
[7]
Brad Shoup: A sad, poetic tale decked out with Gomez c.2000 sonic greebles. I’ll cop to not digging the vocal timbre, but I do respect the patient groove.
[6]
Patrick St. Michel: La Yegros makes the slow drag of this song work by loading “Trocitos de Madera” with unsettling little details. She makes what initially seems like an average march forward feel a whole lot more foreboding.
[6]
Alfred Soto: The odd lyrics (a double entendre I’m not getting, I think) match the odd bits: cheap-ass organ, accordion interludes in unexpected places, La Yegros’ timbre.
[5]
Edward Okulicz: “Trocitos de Madera” is a bit of a weird collage: a simple, menacing bass line, sleepy accordion, and La Yegros attacking consonants and the beat with equal relish. She glues these unsuitable elements, and the track suffers during the long stretch she’s absent. Probably only an edit/re-arrange from an [8], but as it is:
[6]
Scott Mildenhall: Persistently creeping, lurching, appropriate for a more than slightly sinister story. “No para de bailar” could in other hands be a glorious exultation, but here it feels like a curse: you simply cannot stop dancing, whether under severe penalty or other obscure obligation. It certainly couldn’t be a particularly swift dance at this pace – weary and unwilling, as if beamed from 1518 Strasbourg, and accordingly entrancing.
[7]