Cumbia Beat Vol 3

Few places in the world were seemingly unaffected by the emergence of electric guitars and the success of The Beatles and their compatriots in the 60s. In Peru, record labels reacted by seeking out (or creating) marketable combos capable of belting out ringing guitar lines and catchy choruses over tropical rhythms (cumbia, guaracha, guajira). It's these groups and the songs they made between the mid-60s and 1980 that feature here. Silvestre Montez's ‘El Saltamontes’ is a great opener, a lively cumbia with galloping percussion and one of those clarion opening guitar motifs that pulls you in before the groove gets raw. ‘Lamento del Cóndor’ is similarly memorable, with cowbell nailing the beat as vocal whoops, organ trills and masterful guitar take it in turns to showboat. The peculiar psych beat of ‘Larga Espera’ offers something completely different too, but unfortunately these prove some of the few highlights as this latest volume of Cumbia Beat sees a drop in quality, with fewer big names, and a lot of B-side material.

With the audio quality itself also frustratingly inconsistent, the result is the least essential record in the series yet, and mainly of interest for the cumbia-heads out there.