Week 2, What's up? - Is This Real Life? (Chancha Via Circuito Semillas [ZZK Records])

[SET-UP]

With the decision to push play on any Chancha Via Circuito record a very important decision is taken. This is not music for the indecisive. As Machiavelli would have it, power in any situation feeds off of any available uncertainty and insecurity; also a renaming of the Caesar salad into the Cesar Borgia Salad. Different story entirely. In the present tale, however, The choice is yours: Are you willing to believe these sounds as part of an established tapestry, or will you jettison it as the sabotage of a wayward troll. No pressure. But I do implore that you to once again consider it. The very essence of willpower is at stake.

After all, Chancha Via Circuito roughly translates to, if we are to believe the Real Academia Española as any real academic source on the Spanish language, “lies via circuit;” alternatively “filth via circuit.” I suppose, though, that an explanation is in order.

See, Chancha Via Circuito (a.k.a. Pedro Canales) andthe record label that publishes his music, ZZK, has made a living out of expanding the legacy of one of Latin America's most popular dance rhythms beyond  the 20th century; not unlike the continuing evolution of reggae. Every country has its own interpretation and emotional attachment to a style of cumbia, but what of a geographically specific genre in an era of vanishing physical borders? Chancha Via Circuito acts as a sort of Einstürzende Neubauten in this electro-cumbia predicament. As opposed to Tremor or Mati Zundel, Chancha Via Circuito takes the source of idolatry (the music, the rhythm) and places it in different life situations as if to ask, is it still cumbia here? How about here? What if we put a funny hat on it and send it over yonder?

The choice is yours, does the context make the cumbia or does the cumbia create context? Is it a lie; filthy slander? Time to accept or deny.

[REVIEW]

This records (available after the jump) was listened to thrice before the writing of this review.

And with that being said, there is no manner of beginning without addressing the cover art. A gender ambiguous child stares blankly into the distance; as much of an empty void ripe for influence as the cosmic backdrop. A ray of light emerges from a tree stump in the child's hands shining directly towards its being. Nothing more than a design worthy of it's own black-light poster perhaps, but the digital Semillas (Seeds) [EP] comes with two word processing documents: one is liner notes written by Canale himself, the other a tracklist. In the previous, a story is reported about an uncertain morning when the producer awoke to a neighbor's tree branch in his kitchen. The kicker is that the tree could speak and was inclined to engage in human breakfast. A philosophical meal ensued in which the following words were spoken:

Fue una charla en silencio, donde hablamos de la importancia de los días de lluvia, que aunque a nosotros los humanos no siempre nos moja, también nos riega. (It was a conversation in silence, in which we spoke about the importance of rainy days, that even though us humans are not always wet by it, we are also watered)

Metaphysics aside – for excessive plenty of time has already dedicated to the intangible and invisible creative qualities of these songs – Semillas [EP] is a curiously short release. With a free of guilt price that cannot be argued, suspicions of whether the 6 cuts are nothing more than glorified b-sides is ignored. Pay no heed that these tracks were recorded in the same time span as Chancha Via Circuito's debut Rio Arriba.

No such point aside, two significant differences distinguish this release from the one just mentioned. Albeit true that the entirety of this 2012 record is marked by a typically subtle approach to song structure (a bell-curve of emotion), these are also tunes meant for an album. These are songs that are hard to imagine as part of a larger DJ set and the only real exception is the fourth track¹, “Vaina,” which would serve as a formidable warm-up song. Every ten seconds for the first minute or so a new layer is added until stability is reached. The number's climax does not arrive until three minutes and twenty four seconds, when it is met very natural groove. In typical Chancha Via Circuito fashion, multiple sources of additional but not competing sources of percussion co-exist. Anyone up for funky guitar?

The second difference from Rio Arriba is meant more as an observation than a criticism². This is an EP that does not showcase any significant genre shift. Tempo is altered between slow and medium to keep listeners intrigued and free of monotonic despotism. Essentially, though, a niche is found and explored like the best social network account. The overall theme seems develop into “the origins have been isolated, now what will it sprout into?” The opening track, “Burkina,” for example, has a jazzy feel with its syncopated beats. Stray sounds of the Amazon do not garnish or obstruct the track but rather contribute to it. These seemingly ambient sounds – perpetually present in different forms – are always oddly in tune. Rhythm is everywhere; the nature, no pun intended. The nurture is in the third track, “Deropolitissa,” a remix whose vocals, incantations, and ritualistic feel are not necessarily better than the less organized natural song preceding it, just...different.

Much like the final two songs from an age where pop-culture substitutes run of the mill religious worship. The cult of the celebrity and nightlife. Indisputably the final track is the strongest, and unmistakeably the most likely to be favored by listeners. The coincidence is apparent, for this is the most EDM song. “Hippopotamo” is the most accessible by the odd clout computer created sounds have have developed since the age of Kraftwerk³. Is it better than prior tracks because is it more relatable? Is good music intrinsically tied to predictability?

Truly this is the fun in philosophy: a verbal game without a clear winner. Sides are taken but not necessarily maintained. With Chancha Via Circuito the importance of allegiances, I admit, is wholly practical. If one is to accept this music as an extension of a folk art, it provides a filter of legitimacy to the creations; likewise for rejection in that it would be nothing more than wishful thinking. Indeterminacy, though, sucks the listener into a downward spiral of a philosophical black hole that is never resolved.

Semillas [EP] is not an opus, but proves to be more than an apt introduction to the intrigue of Chancha Via Circuito's larger body of work and the blurring of lines between noveau and traditional

Jonathan Cohen is a recovering college radio DJ,discover-er of Jimmy Hoffa Tourettes, and once lauded expert on shrubbery. You can follow him on Twitter through the handle @BoggleUrNoggle

 1 Simultaneously every Dominican's favorite word.

2 This sort of criticism would be wholly unfair.

3 That's two German references for anyone keeping score at home, proving again that everything German goes to die in Argentina