La Tercera Vision

Argentinian musician, DJ and programmer Lagartijeando (aka Mati Zundel) plays Andean-inspired electronic folk with a psychedelic lite touch; there’s always room on his tapes for other sounds and also for other artists – seven of the 12 tracks feature someone or other. When you can’t sing or play anything unusual, it’s quicker to hire a guest than a teacher. ‘Isla de Sol’ splices Andean panpipes, the chug of a cumbia beat, sweetly picked guitar and rich strings and a sampled vocal somewhere between Daft Punk and Enya. ‘Mano de Fatima’ fuses traditional Moroccan Gnawa instrumentation with cumbia, showcasing Khalil Mounji on vocals and gimbri (aka sintir, the three-stringed, skin-covered lute). Cumbia and Andean sounds drive ‘Tierra Natal’, with dreamy, drifty vocals by Madrid-based Eva de Marce.

Other collaborations included are two songs with Mexican Madeleine Bachan Kaur and ‘Onda’ with the Brazilian artist Tagua Tagua. Perhaps its because these three escape the slightly moronic metronomy of the cumbia rhythm, which is the main weakness of the album. Shamanic and trancey or merely repetitive? Ethnically experimental or wearily eclectic? It’s hard to say, but this is an album more for the background busy-bar loop than the focused lights-out living room session.