music will take you there
Money Chicha

Chicha Summit

$28

Vampisoul

VAMPI240
LP
Spain
2021
Media: Mint
Sleeve: NM

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Chicha Summit is the newest album by Austin-based future-Cumbia group Money Chicha. The album features legendary Peruvian guitarist/composer Jose Luis Carballo (Chacalon, La Nueva Crema) and Colombian-American vocalist Kiko Villamizar as well as Nemegata frontman Victor Cruz on percussion. The album explores the nexus of Peru’s legendary fuzzed-out early Chicha sound and Money Chicha’s unique application of Chicha-influenced sounds to their own original compositions. The result is a fascinating temporal exploration of two stunning faces of tropical psychedelia converging. The album itself is divided between two sessions, each representing a different side of the “Chicha Summit” mountain. Side A was recorded during a long weekend in which Jose Carballo and Money Chicha convened for a rehearsal, recording session, workshop, and concert. The event was captured altogether in a single room by Money Chicha guitarist Beto Martinez at his Lechouse Music studio in Buda Texas and recorded directly to tape via his vintage Tascam 388. Subsequent sessions were recorded by Greg Gonzalez at his own The Electric Basecamp studio and vocalist Kiko Villamizar’s Wepa Estudios to capture additional percussion, vocals, and overdubs. The result is a tribute to the highly influential and much-beloved music of Peru performed with Jose Carballo, one of the genre’s greatest performers and composers and the man responsible for introducing his trademark Shaeler fuzztone distorted guitar sound that would forever change the idea of what a Cumbia could be. Side B was recorded over another long weekend at the famous Sonic Ranch studio in Tornillo Texas, a sprawling complex of vintage studios located in a Pecan orchard on the Texas-Mexico border a half-hour outside of El Paso. This side of the record represents the current, original face of the Chicha-inspired, tropical-futurist sound of Money Chicha. Here in the high West Texas desert, isolated from all distractions, the band set out to record the sonic version of a Cumbia vision-quest fueled by Mezcal, espresso, vintage synthesizers, a legendary recording console, the ghosts of our musical ancestors, and psilocybin.