This Brooklyn-based band are here to intoxicate you with their potent mixture of latin rhythms, surf music and psychedelic pop. Chicha Libre draw their inspiration from... Chicha, a form of Peruvian music that emerged from the Amazon in the early '70s, loosely derived from Colombian accordion-driven cumbias but incorporating distinctive Andean melodies, some Cuban son and heady swirls of surf guitar, farfisa organ and moog synth. All in all, a sound which wouldn't seem out of place in the soundtrack of a Tarantino movie.
 
By combining covers of forgotten Chicha classics with French-tinged originals, re-interpretations of '70s pop classics (such as 'Popcorn' and Joe Dassin/Toto Cutugno's 1975 hit 'Indian Summer'), and subtly executed cumbia takes on pieces by Satie and Ravel, Chicha Libre meld elegant homage with playful humour and a sublime twist of the new - pushing their music way beyond mere pastiche and into strange, sun-blanched epiphany.
 

Band leader Olivier Conan (who runs hip Brooklyn club Barbès) developed an unnatural passion for vintage Chicha during a trip to Peru. He ended up releasing the acclaimed “Roots Of Chicha” compilation, and decided to go a step further by forming this inventive band which, aside from Conan himself on lead vocals and cuatro (a small, four-stringed latin American guitar), comprises keyboardist Joshua Camp (who plays an antiquated accordion/organ hybrid called the Electravox, and is also one half of lit pop band One Ring Zero); bassist Nicholas Cudahy (ex-Combustible Edison); guitarist Vincent Douglas (Bébé Eiffel & The Humphries) and veteran percussionists Greg Burrows and Tim Quigley.
 
By the way, Chicha is a corn liquor favored by the Incas and still very popular throughout Peru.