In celebration of Cinco de Mayo, I was going to post details from this set of five cards I designed, and talk about how I want to print them with one of these Gocco kits. But instead, I started playing with the image above, and I think it fits these sounds better. (I mention the gocco cards thing hoping that if I talk about it enough, I might actually do it.)

Meanwhile... musics!

° Instituto Mexicano Del Sonido - Bienvenidos a mi Disco mp3

° El Guincho - Palmitos Park mp3

First is from the 2006 album Méjico Máxico by Instituto Mexicano Del Sonido aka Camilo Lara who said that his record "smells like Mexico in a way." And even though it's by a Spaniard and not a Mexican, El Guincho's Alegranza! is a similar jumble of traditional rhythms and eclectic samples. But where Lara shows a lot of Mancini love, Guincho's more experimental style goes into Tropical/Latin/Afrobeat overdrive with a bit of an early rock swing that makes it super fun listening. I have a fantasy that all the ice cream trucks in Brooklyn will finally switch out their scary/clown/torture music and use this instead.

Oh! And.. El Guincho's playing South Street Seaport July 25 with Atlas Sound, so that's awesome.

See also:
+ Real reviews by Pitchfork and Earplug
+ A related Guincho blog: discotecaoceano.blogspot.com
+ Related but unrelated: Brooklyn's experimental synthpop duo Something in Spanish are cute and fun and cool. If you can catch them out, go see. I also quite like the background pattern on their MySpace page.