¡Nuevo!

¡Nuevo! (starring Grupo El Reto, Julio Preciado, y más)

NorteñoBlog would like to apologize for sleeping on Grupo El Reto‘s March album A La Vieja Escuela (Gerencia 360); although in my defense, if El Reto is so Old School, their music should be timeless, right? More correctly, this quartet belongs to la Corriente Escuela of corridistas who sing about corruption while their corrosive tubists imitate machine gun fire. Corre! — to their Pick to Click single, that is, a duet with the quartet Alta Consigna. Alta Consigna, you see, also has a tuba player in the band, which means “La Parranda Va Empezar” features two tubists doing crazy things. (Consigna also has a hot bajo sexto player imitating a requinto. I think that’s what that is.)

Also Vieja Escuela y VALE LA PENA is the new album from Julio Preciado y Su Banda Perla Del Pacifico, Ni Para Bien Ni Para Mal (Luz). Preciado’s a veteran of two Sinaloan bandas, La Original Banda El Limón and Banda El Recodo; he struck out on his own, I wanna say at the turn of the millennium. This new album is fairly trad, perpetually high-NRG banda with its horn sections not entirely in tune, but I think that’s intentional. (It sounds cool and adds to the energy.) I will now quote at length from Preciado’s Wikipedia page:

On February 2, 2009 he was assigned to sing the Mexican National Anthem in Mexicali, Baja California, Mexico, as a part of the Opening Ceremony of the Caribbean Baseball Series (Serie del Caribe). He made several mistakes in the anthem lyrics and musical pace, being majorly booed by the audience.

You know, these things happen to the best of us, and NorteñoBlog forgives Preciado just as we did Christina Aguilera and Roseanne Barr, because WHO CARES. Surely there were extenuating circumstances?

Some factors came into play during the failure to sing the national anthem properly since the background music did not play, so he decided to improvise by singing a capella. He decided to extend the improvisation. The audience’s reaction caused the local sound to be shut off to protect Preciado from more serious actions by an angered public, so he could stop singing. In fact some people in the stadium assure that the singer was drunk.

I want more extended improvisations on national anthems! I know what you’re wondering: is this brouhaha on Youtube, complete with angry fans yelling and poor Preciado shrugging sheepishly at the end? You bet it is!

Julio apologized to the audience and in a written statement hoping he will get a second chance to sing the national anthem in the future.

So the guy apologized — in writing — and that’s gotta be the end of the story. No?

Before the Carnival of Mazatlan Preciado was a serious candidate to be burned as a “burn of bad humor” (La quema del mal humor), an event that burns the people or event that represents the worst thing for the people, But since he was a diputade with license and using his influence and money in the town of Mazatlan he was saved of that “un-honor” despite he won the votes of the people of Mazatlan to be burned.

Your diputade knows what you need, but I know what you want. Glad you weren’t burned, Julio! End of story? Por favor?

Since he was not burned in that event the people of Mazatlan towards his anger with his daughter Yuliana Preciado, during the parade where she was elected as a “Infant Queen” in the middle of corruption and scandal, the people started to sing the Mexican National Anthem loudly to her in protest.

This will never end, will it? The sins of the padre will be visited upon generations yet unborn, until every new Preciado knows that anthem by heart. Listen to the new album, it’s really good.

From the southern state of Oaxaca comes Banda Costado and their violin-driven single “Pinotepa” (Talento). This is a way different sound than we usually enjoy here: lots of percussion, tuba bassline, wild violin, and singers. Many independent lines and very little chordal harmony, in other words. Exciting stuff. VALE LA PENA.

Traviezoz de La Zierra has teamed up with the late Ariel Camacho’s guitarist and tubist, aka Los Plebes Del Rancho, to record a tribute to Ariel, called “Mis Ultimos Momentos” (Del). Given the subject, it’s appropriately slow and deliberative, but Camacho’s own slow and deliberative songs tended to have compelling melodies. NO VALE LA PENA.

May 14, 2015 4

¡Nuevo! (starring Noel Torres, Omar Sánchez Omi, y más)

Well this is the stuff of myth and legend:

Desde el filo de la sierra
Viene la historia que traigo:
Que por esas tierras
Suelta anda una fiera
Entre aquellos pinos altos…

From the edge of the sierra
Comes the story that I bring:
Through those lands
Freely walks a beast
Among those tall pines …

Plenty of corridos begin in a similar manner, of course, establishing their (anti)heroes as larger than life figures. But Noel Torres’s new single on Gerencia 360, “No Andan Cazando Venados” (“Don’t Go Hunting Deer”), opens with knowing mastery of the form. Torres begins by placing himself into the story as storyteller, thus joining the long historical line of corridistas, stretching back not just to Ramon Ayala but to Homer recounting the tales of brave Ulysses. (“Tell me, O Muse…”) Then things get scary. I admit I shuddered when I got to the part about the beast roaming through the tall pines — it’s such a contrast with the folksy opening, and “fiera” arrives at the end of its line with a jolt. Torres reclaims the word’s savagery. (I swear, if I hear one more TV chef tell me he’s “a beast in the kitchen”…) Now I just need to figure out the rest of the song. Something to do with the DEA and big-ass guns. The translation service is limited help in this case.

The song was written by El Diez and Danilo Avilés. El Diez is the shadowy figure who wrote the equally mythic “El Karma,” recorded most iconically by the late Ariel Camacho, but also by Torres and lots of other people. Avilés wrote the second song on Camacho’s El Karma album, and Torres’s arrangement of “Venados” sounds like he’s adapting Camacho’s unusual instrumentation. He takes stripped down passages of requinto guitar solos over lurching tuba, the same dynamic you find in Camacho’s repertoire, and alternates them with full banda sections. Horns replace rhythm guitar. The result is both serious and silly (ay, esos clarinetes), a fitting tribute that also fits with Torres’s swagger. Pick to Click, obviously.

Should you develop a hankering to delve into corrido history, the Freddie label has released a new Ramon Ayala comp entitled Corridos Famosos. Ayala’s muse speaks to him the tales of brave Gerardo Gonzales, Juanita y Miguel, y otros. No idea how this compares with other Ayala compilations out there.

If we’re already talking (probably) unnecessary cheapo Ramon Ayala reissues, you may have guessed it’s a light week for albums. You’re right! The singles, though, they never stop. Fonovisa has recently sent to radio new work from some of its heaviest hitters. Los Tigres are back with their third Realidades single, the midtempo waltz “Hoy Le Hablo El Diario,” which does the thing where the rhythm section rushes the second beat of every bar so the waltz feels slightly nauseating. In a good way. If you like beards and flannel and don’t wanna move to Seattle, Codigo FN has a slow one out called “Pinche Vieja Interesada,” which is less interesante than its title. Better are the new Proyecto X corrido “5 Letras,” reeling off verse after verse like a gold-plated machine gun eating up magazines, and Remmy Valenzuela’s very stripped-down chiquitita ballad “Menti,” in which his accordion seems capable of breath and thought.

But who needs major label distribution when the internet frontier beckons musicians to simply release their own music? Tejano singer Bobby Pulido has been on the scene since the mid-’90s, and his new “Si No Te Hubiera Conocido” is a likable walking tempo number that could’ve come from Intocable — but does Intocable have its own line of Western wear (see top of page)? I submit that Intocable does NOT.

The equally breezy Los Grandes de Tijuana DRANK YOUR LOVE! Just drank it right up. Los Grandes are also ’90s music lifers, and “Me Bebi Tu Amor” has the lazy front-porch-with-squeezebox vibe of Bob Dylan’s Tejano album Together Through Life, still my favorite of his post-’70s catalog.

NorteñoBlog swooned when Gerardo Ortiz mixed up the banda with the bachata in “Eres Una Niña,” and now I hear Omar Sánchez Omi trying something similar on “Tu y Yo.” Rhythmically it doesn’t vary too much from Recodo’s romantic moods, but Sánchez’s voice is husky and swarthy like King Romeo’s and could have some of the same R&B appeal, if enough people hear him. Sánchez used to sing for Chicago’s Alacranes Musical, one of my favorite duranguense bands, and there exists a photo of him dressed up like Santa Claus and standing next to Diana Reyes, so I’m pulling for him.

May 5, 2015 3

¡Nuevo! (starring Banda Cuisillos, Jovanko Ibarra, y más)

In the movements known as Puro Zacatecas Sax and Puro Chihuahua Sax, one of the biggest wasted opportunities is the lack of terrible “sax” puns in album titles. Research reveals the Argentinian Nino Albertelli once released an album called Amor y Saxo, but that’s Argentina’s problem. Where is the Saxo Tántrico, the Saxo En La Playa, the Paga Para El Saxo of northern Mexico? Smooth jazz would’ve had this all locked down by now.

Fortunately the Mexican bands in question play with more lively energy than they use when bestowing titles, and this week sees new releases from two of ’em. In this corner, La Fiera de Ojinaga (“The Beast of Ojinaga”!) represents Chihuahua with the album Como Una Fiera (Azteca); the first spritely single goes by the same title, and from what I’ve heard, the rest of the album promises much much more. Possible alternate title: Saxy Fiera.

In the opposite corner, representing Zacatecas with one half-ton of bounciness, is the sextet (saxtet?) Los Retoños del Rio, whose “Por Qué la Engañe” NorteñoBlog has already recommended. It’s totes Intocablish, and frankly better than Intocable’s last couple singles. Their new album is De Buena Escuela (Goma) (alternate title: Saxo Con Mi Profesora), and NorteñoBlog has slacked by not listening to any of its other songs yet, but these bands are nothing if not consistent.

The kings of this genre, Conjunto Primavera, have a new compilation out this week, because it is the position of the benevolent Fonovisa corporation that no band can ever be compiled enough. La Historia de los Éxitos (alternate title: El Mejor Saxo Nunca) is part of a series that also includes best-of’s by grupos Bryndis, Yndio, Liberacion, y Los Rehenes y Los Traileros. Get it quick before another one comes out next month!

Moving along to banda, the jokesters in Banda Cuisillos have a fine new-ish single called “Cerveza”, which features several of NorteñoBlog’s favorite elements: two different singers trying to outdo one another in the passion department, brass alternating with guitar, and deplorable sexism. Please accept it as this week’s Pick to Click with my apologies, but also with the understanding that, using the late Ellen Willis’s formula, “Cerveza” still isn’t as deplorably sexist as Cat Stevens’s “Wild World.”

Banda singer and former La Voz Mexico contestant Jovanko Ibarra is an extremely handsome man who should wear a helmet when he rides his motorcycle in the video for “No Le Hagamos al Cuento.” Look at it this way: when the Smithsonian moves the Hope Diamond, do you think they just toss it like a football to whichever flunky happens to be standing around? No. The Hope Diamond requires layers of padding and precautions and moving techniques that have been honed over decades, to ensure that the Hope Diamond makes it through the moving process unscathed. My point is, Jovanko Ibarra is prettier than the Hope Diamond. His new album No Le Hagamos al Cuento (Prodisc) has his picture on the cover.

Since we’re speaking of pretty dudes, I’ll turn your attention to Daniel Agostini and his 2003 album Sentimientos Vol. 1 (Magenta), whose album cover depicts him as an angel. Whether the songs bear this out I can’t say, but a cursory listen reveals some charming and very twee electrocumbia. I bring it up because it’s new to streaming services, and also because THE ALBUM COVER DEPICTS HIM AS AN ANGEL.

Banda singer Sandra Chavez “La Comadre” is planning something. Most likely it’s an album or EP release, but the rollout by her label Music Eyes is proceeding in a slow and seemingly haphazard fashion. Earlier today three “singles” hit Youtube, and you can count yourself among the first human people to listen to them. “Sinceramente” is just that; “Me Das Asco” is stately; “Mejor Sin Ti” is heartbroken. None packs the punch of last year’s “Mucha Mujer” and its biker chic video where, I’d just like to point out to my new friend Jovanko, Sandra had the good sense to wear a face-obscuring helmet while riding her bike. Of course, using the late Roger Ebert’s formula, you’d expect that from her.

Finally, three recent albums of corridos:

Los Canelos de Durango sing about El Señor de la Montaña (Pegasus);

Luis Salomon sings about cartel figure Tito Beltran in “Por Encargo de los Viejos (Tito Beltran)” (ICON);

and Los Meros Meros Alteños sing Corridos y Canciones (Hyphy).

April 29, 2015 5

¡Nuevo! (starring Los Gfez, Laura Denisse, y más)

There are times when NorteñoBlog’s rudimentary knowledge of Spanish becomes an obstacle. One such time is today, as I try to figure out the great new single by Los Gfez, “Hasta Tu Dedo Gordito” (Remex). (Pick to Click!) The subject of this song is plain from all the gratuitous bosom shots in the video: it’s about tu cuerpo and what Martin Panuco would like to do to it. The question comes when we try to determine the identity of the title dedo. At heart a third grade boy, I’ve used my context clues to determine that esta mujer’s dedo gordito is located somewhere below her ombligo; that Panuco is traveling from ombligo to dedo gordito with his lengua; and that somewhere in this scenario, there is a pomo (“knob”) he wants to raise. (“Cien por ciento”! Nothing less will do!) I can only conclude that this dedo gordito is la mujer’s big toe. I implore you not to google images of dedos gorditos unless you get off on toe injuries. No judging. I should mention that the quartet Los Gfez, last seen joining Diego Herrera on a likable Mexican hit, start their search for the mystery dedo fast and, through the magic of time changes, find a way to get faster. Good luck, guys! Send postcards!

Since NorteñoBlog was quiet last week and since this week is all singles, we’ve got a second Pick to Click: Laura Denisse’s good humored banda swinger “Sigo Enamorada” (Fonovisa). Denisse has a big clear voice in the vein of Linda Ronstadt, and she’s been singing a mix of banda and pop since she was a kid in the ’90s. This song, about continuing to love, is her major label debut. The banda arrangement is delightfully spare and snappy — Denisse spends much of the first verse singing over a bed of percussion and tuba, with minimal horn interjections. The big brass riff is simply a series of repeated notes, but the players articulate and syncopate like swaggering jazz cowboys.

Ely Quintero has been releasing her own banda and norteño music for several years now. Her new one, “La Pantera Rosa” (Ely), is only on Youtube as a series of preview snippets; as a lickety split quartet tune, it seems promising. As I catch up with her terrific previous singles, Quintero reminds me of one of the Terrazas sisters from Los Horóscopos, whichever has the brasher attitude.

Speaking of brash attitudes, the fast and furious Alfredo Ríos El Komander goes slow and serious for “Me Interesa” (Twiins), another half-assed single after “Fuga Pa’ Maza.” Only where “Fuga” was half-assed in a gloriously drunken whirlyball way, this ballad is half-assed in a sad slumped-over-the-bar way. I’m half-assedly searching for a parallel from the canon — maybe it’s the “Drinks After Work” to “Fuga”‘s “Red Solo Cup”? Suggestions welcome.

La Trakalosa de Monterrey has thrilled us with Faustian bargains and depressive wrist slitters. Now with Tatiana they are going Broadway, or something. Despite its nonstop barrage of words, “Ser Un Niño Esta Genial” (Remex) sounds like something that skipped off a Luis Coronel album, winking and pointing little finger guns at everyone in the room. The guys in La Trakalosa used to be adictos a la tristeza; now they’re hooked on Zoloft.

Banda Troyana does the small-band-strumming vs. big-brass-assault thing with entertainingly driving results in “¿Y Cómo Crees?” (Azteca). By the end of the song you pity the poor sap ripping through all those spectacular trombone fills — he’s going red and his tongue’s getting tired.

April 22, 2015 2

¡Nuevo! (or, Is “El Karma” the new “Louie Louie”?)

For corrido bands, “El Karma” is quickly becoming what “Louie Louie” was to ’60s garage rockers or “I’m Not Your Stepping Stone” was to D.C. hardcore bands: the song you play to prove your mettle and/or prove you’re metal. This was true even before Ariel Camacho’s death propelled the song to mythic status and #1 on the Hot Latin chart earlier this year. Last year Camacho, Noel Torres ft. Voz De Mando, Revolver Cannabis, and two of this week’s bands all recorded versions of the song, and last week the Ivan Archivaldo impersonators in Grupo Maximo Grado released their own take. “El Karma” has several things to recommend it to aspiring nihilists. Its story and takeaway lesson are badass; its minor-key B section sets it apart from the corrido pack; and it works as well with rowdy bandas as it does with unsmiling small ensembles. Nadie de la parca se puede escapar — so we might as well dance, right?

The 17 or so members of Banda Culiacancito were last seen cutting a live album of duets with the norteño band Revolver Cannabis and the late corridista Ariel Camacho, and their version of “El Karma” is a muy borracho thing, far removed from Camacho’s stolid solo rendition. Their new album Termina de Aceptario (DEL/Sony) returns to just Culiacancito and their horns, with a rollicking single called “Lastima de Tu Cuerpo.”

Last year La Séptima Banda cut their own version of “El Karma,” a cover of competing borrachera and verve. They titled their whole album after the song, in fact — El Karma: Puros Corridos (Hyphy). Their major label debut Segurito Segurito (Fonovisa) is out this week, and it’s already yielded one minor radio hit with the big, bouncy “Bonito y Bello.” “B’y’B” is NOT puro corrido; its swanky melody reminds me Adriel Favela’s “Cómo Olvidarla,” which in turn reminded me of Tower of Power or something, but maybe you should check for yourself.

Panchito Arredondo does not, to my knowledge, have a cover of “El Karma” floating around, but I’ll tell you what is floating around: the guy’s sense of pitch. His second album Mayor de la Vagancia (Hyphy) should be required listening for aspiring TV singing contestants; in places it’s as painful as Madonna’s high notes in “Into the Groove.” But like Madonna, Panchito’s saved by energy and sympathetic backing musicians who generally succeed in hustling him away from the long notes. On the song “El Polacas,” those musicians include the young band Grupo H100, who are also on Hyphy but who are not themselves hyphy. (Thinkpiece forthcoming.)

María Belem should not be confused with the telenovela María Belén aka María Belém. (I was briefly confused.) Her low budget videos “¿Te Acuerdas?” and “Yo Te Decido” came out last year and have been largely ignored, a shame for songs with such robust energy. Now comes her debut album Orgullo de Tierra Caliente (Prodisc), as cheerful an album as I’ve heard this year, even when Belem is lamenting “Que Triste Navidad.”

“Yo Te Decido” would be this week’s Pick to Click if I hadn’t come across this cumbia album that may or may not be a compilation, Banda Cohuich‘s No Te Equivoques (Pegasus). The cover advertises the exito “Son Kora Kau Te Te Kai Nie Ni (Dialecto Huichol),” Huichol being an indigenous Mexican language, “Son Kora” being a relentless jerking propulsion machine with brass, gang vocals, and a slippery synth line (I think). Quickie Youtube research reveals that several of these songs existed several years ago, but also that Banda Cohuich consistently rocks, especially on the speedy mucho-syllabic electrocumbia “Chicos iLu.”

OTHER SEEMINGLY NEW ALBUMS OR REISSUES:

El Rey Pelusa – Irresistible
La Fe Norteña de Toño Aranda – Entre la Espada y la Pared (Goma)
Los Junior’s Klan – Contragolpe (RCA)
Grandes Exitos de Los Terrícolas (NVO)
Rossy War y Su Banda Kaliente – Soy Diferente (INDEPENDIENTE)

April 7, 2015 3

¡Nuevo! (starring Larry Hernández, Pesado, y más)

Here at NorteñoBlog we’ve not yet explored the career of Larry Hernández, corridista and family man, creator of both controversial Youtube smashes and a reality show called Larrymania. He’s out with a new album today, 16 Narco Corridos: Vol. 2 (Fonovisa), whose psychedelic purple cover — complete with frolicking spiders and ungulates! — suggests a lyrical move from production to consumption. No idea whether that’s true, since none of the songs seem to have found their way onto the internet yet. (Though I’m probably wrong about that, since Hernández knows his way around the internet better than I do.) Instead we have the sweet if stalkery “Vete Acostumbrando”, in which Hernández promises to show up outside your window at midnight with a banda, looking for your silhouette on the shade. Nice of him to provide warning.

Vol. 2 is the sequel to 2009’s 16 Narco Corridos, for a time Hernández’s biggest selling album and spawner of the hit “El Baleado.” Hernández got the same rap as Movimiento Alterado: that he glorified violence by singing explicitly about the violent murders surrounding Mexican drug cartels. According to Billboard‘s Leila Cobo, Hernández saw it differently:

Hernandez says he in no way seeks to glorify that way of life. While some of the appeal may lie simply in its shock value, composer/singer Hernandez says he sings about what he knows. “I lived violence as a child,” says Hernandez, who’s also an avid reader of books about drug cartels and the drug trade. “I was born in Los Angeles but was raised in Mexico, and as a boy, I saw how this person or the other was killed. They are my experiences.”

But while this may be the reality in Mexico, it isn’t the same in the United States. This fact, producer Adolfo Valenzuela says, makes the songs harmless- and appealing- in the United States. “Here, it would be almost impossible for [young people] to go around toting guns,” says Valenzuela, whose company, Twiins Enterprises, has signed several new acts like El Kommander. “I think they merely see it as something forbidden and cool. They see it as a new trend.”

Sometimes I wonder whether Adolfo Valenzuela inspired the character of Caesar Flickerman in The Hunger Games.

In the past we’ve been annoyed by the superabundance of Pesado’s live albums, but we’ve also appreciated their acumen for soaring melodies and male video models. Their new album Abrázame (Disa) may or may not be out today, or possibly sometime in May, but there’s no question it opens with their VALE LA PENA single “Que Aún Te Amo,” and it’s quite likely that lovelorn singer Mario Alberto Zapato could use a hug.

The border city of Ojinaga, Chihuahua, has a dual musical personality. In the ’80s it was home to man myth legend Pablo Acosta, El Zorro de Ojinaga, one of those storied drug traffickers who gave back to the community before getting offed by los federales. As such, Ojinaga and El Zorro himself will live forever in the form of corridos, including one by Los Tigres. But Ojinaga is also the musical home to a slew of peppy saxophone dance bands, including Conjunto Primavera and Los Rieleros, giving rise to the “puro Chihuahua sax” sound. Two such bands have new music out: La Fiera de Ojinaga just released the single “Como Una Fiera” (Azteca), and Capitanes de Ojinaga have the album Volando Hacia Ti (Goma) with its solid romantic lope “Cuando Quieras Llorar.” Capitanes’ singer even sounds a little like Primavera’s Tony Meléndez, one of the higher compliments NorteñoBlog can pay.

The Go Tejano Day protesters had a point — their music has suffered neglect in recent years — but what about those poor fans of tierra caliente? Man, nobody’s even talking about that stuff any more! NorteñoBlog would seek to right this wrong, but I actually don’t like tierra caliente, since it always just seemed like duranguense for supper clubs or church socials. Here to prove me wrong are genre stalwarts Triny y La Leyenda with Me Voy a Ir (Discos Arpeggio). Triny’s single “Tu Desastre” could be worse — the accordionist is spitting out some wicked fills in the background — but I fear it won’t change hearts and minds. Neither will the latest hits compilation by supertwee Tierra Cali, La Historia… Mis Éxitos (Universal).

You would perhaps like some cumbias? Argentina’s Rocio Quiroz has a new album, Vivir Soñando (Ser Música), thoughtfully uploaded to Youtube by some scofflaw. This seems really good, especially its Pick to Click single “La De La Paloma”, a minor key stomp with its drums slightly off-kilter in that delicious cumbia manner. The guitar tone is like something out of ’80s new wave, and Quiroz sounds great spitting out heartache.

Like many corridistas before them, Grupo Máximo Grado think they are Iván Archibaldo Guzmán Salazar, and they sing as much on their latest album and single, Yo Soy Ivan (Sol/Hyphy). See also Gerardo Ortiz’s “Archivaldo,” where Banda El Recodo and Los Tucanes show up at Ivan Archivaldo’s party. Máximo Grado’s Ivan has hot licks and a good tune that climbs its way into the upper register (akin to how Ivan’s dad climbed his way into the upper ranks of the Sinaloa Cartel, hmmmm?), but little in the way of uncanny lyrical detail. Corridistas take note: you should always namedrop who plays your icons’ parties, because it gives me more to write about.

I know nothing about Los BisNietos except each one is un Hombre De Rancho (Luz), although their singing comes more from the school of clean norteño vocals, reminiscent of Glenn Medeiros. (As opposed to Marco Flores’s more extreme norteño vocals, reminiscent of a rooster.) The single “Me Creo” has some wicked accordion, fitting for a song in which Los BisNietos cast themselves as villains… OF THE HEART. Their sideburns are their rapiers.

March 31, 2015 4

¡Nuevo! (starring Julión Álvarez, Shalia Dúrcal, y más)

Julión Álvarez has been called many things: the best singer on the continent (OK, that was me), “un gran ejemplo para la juventud mexicana” (THAT was the president of México), the biggest deal in regional Mexican music last year because Gerardo Ortiz didn’t release a new album, and… Well, people don’t actually talk about Álvarez that much, even though he’s never made a bad album that I’ve found, and his last album produced three radio hits. The former Banda MS singer has worked his way from an indie to a major label with an impressive consistency that may be hard to write about. Álvarez emerges from the studio once a year with an untroubled good album: mostly uptempo, a variety of styles, and a voice that sounds both lived-in and young, toying with its own scratchy crags and the tricky rhythms of his trio and a big banda. “Y Así Fue,” his single from 2014, could have been anyone’s spritely sex romp, but Álvarez rendered it indelible with the little swoops in his voice. His unpredictable vibrato threatens to lose the pitch at any moment, almost like he’s about to cry.

So he’s a romantic who makes easy listening. The thing is, Indispensable was the best album of 2014 because it was so easy to listen to, and each listen revealed something new about the singer’s devotion to musical pleasure. Álvarez’s new album, El Aferrado (Fonovisa), sounds after a couple listens like a singer who’s successfully codified that pleasure, at least for himself. There are surprising moments like the title song, a Pick to Click that combines the two ensembles to jarring effect. But though trombone, tuba, and accordion reinvent the song nearly every second they play, nobody ever sounds like they’re about to lose it. It’s a very professional take on Wild Banda + Trio. The lead single, a ballad called “El Amor De Su Vida,” is far worse, to the point where you might not even know Álvarez is singing. The greatness of his singing has always dwelled in his sense of rhythm and phrasing as much as the unique grain of his voice. Now the grain of his voice remains, but nothing gets caught on it, least of all the pat melody of “Amor.”

The band name Luis y Julián Jr. pays tribute to Luis y Julian, a stolid country harmony duo from, oh, the ’90s or possibly earlier. I’m not sure whether Luis y Julian Sr. sang songs with the kind of macho, tight-lipped sense of humor that makes me certain they’re about to bash my head against the bar; but Luis y Julián Jr. sure do! “Las Muchachas de Estos Tiempos” is your standard “women and their Facebook dragging me away from my cockfights, amirite” song; the duo also sings something I’m guessing not entirely complimentary about Boy George and “Georgie” Michael. Drinks in your faces, assholes. NorteñoBlog has previously covered their latest single “Asi es el Juego,” ft. Naty Chávez, a cover of Colmillo Norteño. Its explicit take on Real Talk norteño balladry is sort of cute, but it’s not like you’d wanna listen to it for the music or anything. So three more drinks to the face, and expect more of the same on what I think is their debut album, A Chin… ¿pos Qué Pasó? (Remex).

Shalia Dúrcal is from Spain but has gotten some traction in México, having sung with Jenni Rivera and delved into Mexican styles. Her latest single “No Me Interesa” blends Nashville guitar licks, ranchera horns, and electropulse into something that never peaks but is more compelling for it. Second Pick to Click, what the heck, and her self-titled sixth (?) album is just out on EMI. The album opens with “Has Sido Tú,” a tech-folk-ranchera stomper whose main riff is lifted directly from one of Slash’s solos in “Sweet Child o’ Mine.” Now the second song, sweeping ballad “Yo Daría,” is sweeping me off my feet. I have extremely high hopes for this album and should probably just liveblog it. (I won’t tell you who Durcal’s mom is, you’ll have to look that shit up, but fear not — it’s in the first paragraph of every bio.) Go listen to Shalia Dúrcal!

Uriel Henao, “El Rey del Corrido Prohibido,” releases albums on his own self-titled label and just put out an Éxitos comp. “La Mafia Continua” is about the mafia and how it continues.

Not to be outdone, Los Rieleros del Norte have just released their 42nd album, Corridos y Canciones de Mi Tierra. Their tierra is Pecos, TX, though like many Texas bands they get their puro sax style from Chihuahua. Lead single “Mis Peores Deseos” has effortless appeal, just like every other Rieleros song I’ve ever heard.

Sadly I don’t have time to lead you down the rabbit hole of puro Chihuahua and/or Zacatecas sax, but check out the good folks at MundoNorteño, who’ve been going crazy with that stuff.

March 26, 2015 1

¡Nuevo! (starring Mario Delgado, Gerardo Ortiz, y más)

Julión Álvarez’s new White Album El Aferrado comes out next week, and already Fonovisa is protecting is assets by taking down any version of the lead single, “El Amor de Su Vida,” that leaks to the internet. I’ve seen at least three Youtubes go down since yesterday! That’s how you know it’s gonna be big. The above link seems to be the official Fonovisa audio-with-an-album-cover post; unfortunately, the song’s about as compelling as its static, monochrome “video.” Last year’s album was a breakthrough for Álvarez; it scored three Top 11 singles on the Hot Latin chart and was a NorteñoBlog favorite, making this generic new “Amor” especially disappointing. If this song wasn’t sung by Álvarez — a man who is, by most conservative estimates, the best singer on the continent — it could be any midtempo banda ballad about a lovelorn hombre wooing a buxom mujer.

Speaking of which! Gerardo Ortiz’s new album comes out in May, I think, but for the time being he’s content to keep releasing singles from his career-defining Archivos de Mi Vida. This week it’s “Perdóname,” written by singer-songwriter América Sierra; the song starts slow and boring but livens up once Ortiz strings together endless runs of triplet syllables. This makes it slightly better than Álvarez’s song, which never livens up. A year and a half after the album dropped and Ortiz is still only on his third single! The man knows how to pace himself.

Amid all the flying corazóns, this week’s Pick to Click is a sad but swinging protest corrido using chicken farming as a parable about Mexican kidnapping violence (I think — see the video screenshot above). It’s entitled “El Rancho,” by Mario ‘El Cachorro’ Delgado (Garmex). The simple tune is appealing enough, but check out the interplay between bass, guitar, and requinto, alternately locking in together and tugging at the rhythm with passages of loose virtuosity.

Bomba Estéreo doesn’t really fall under NorteñoBlog’s purview, but their new “Fiesta” (Sony) is rat-a-tat-tat electro-cumbia with crazy manipulated voices bouncing all around. And while we’re talking Sony products outside the purview, I should mention the two Natalias: Spain’s Natalia Jiménez, whose album Creo En Mi contains NorteñoBlog fave “Quedate Con Ella” and lots of other dramatic and/or fun pop, at least one song of which features pedal steel (I’m blanking on the title). And then there’s México’s murmury Natalia Lafourcade, beloved of the Singles Jukebox though not necessarily me, with the album Hasta La Raíz. “Mi Lugar Favorito” is fun in an arty go-go boots way — sort of reminds me of Stereolab.

Somehow I’ve overlooked the January debut of Toño Lizárraga y Su Banda Son de Tambora, Vuelvo a Nacer (Skalona). Based on only a couple songs, we didn’t miss too much, though the video for “Me Pegó la Gana” is entertaining, with Lizárraga’s banda overloading some rowboats as they serenade a remote jungle river.

Finally in cumbia reissues, the Magenta label has re-released two turn-of-the-millennium albums with extremely cool covers: La Junta’s No Voy a Cambiar…

and Hernán Rodriguez’s De Película. I’d go with Rodriguez, since his album doesn’t open with a sappy easy listening ballad. His sappy ballad comes in the middle of the album, when you’re ready to fall down or refill your coffee. Plus it has some improbably distorted guitar.

March 17, 2015 4

¡Nuevo! (starring El Komander, Grupo H-100, y más)

Alfredo Ríos El Komander (I guess that’s what we’re calling him now?) continues to fire off charming singles that sound like he wrote them on a napkin and recorded them in the back of the bar. His latest, “Fuga Pa’ Maza” (Twiins) makes the theme explicit. It’s a drinking song whose background crowd noises exist as much for their musical energy as their verisimilitude — note how the crowd abruptly shuts up mid-whoop at the end of the song, rather than fading into a jumble of congratulatory high-fives. “Mi vida es pura pura pura borrachera,” Ríos brags, his tuba and requinto (I think) players capering around the bar, spilling everyone’s drinks. Youtube commenters seem disappointed this isn’t a corrido, but it wins NorteñoBlog’s coveted VALE LA PENA/CLICK TO PICK double shot. Now go corrupt some youth!

You’ll remember la semana pasada NorteñoBlog noted two new Hyphy releases by corridistas Chuy Vega and Los Originales de San Juan. They’re both back this week, having released other albums of apparently new music for different indie labels. Not that I’m complaining — jazz players like Wadada Leo Smith and Rob Mazurek busily compile equally confusing discographies, and putting the pieces together is part of the fun. This week, Vega’s Puras Norteñitas (jesus jose vega cuamea) and Los Originales’ Celebrando 39 (Long Play) both sound (on cursory listen) like solid country collections, with a slight edge to Vega, but if you don’t have Spotify or Rhapsody you might just have to take my word for it because Youtube’s not yielding much.

Not to overlook Hyphy, their young bass quintet Grupo H-100 has a debut album out called Nada Que Hacer. Its cover hearkens back to the golden age of hyphy norteño, with bullet-holes, skull jackets, and a shiny urban metal-and-leather aesthetic. But these guys have nothing to do with hyphy norteño. (Thinkpiece forthcoming.) Lead singer Jasiel Felix has kind of a Noel Torres thing going on, where he seems to be perpetually holding your shoulder and looking you in the eye without expression. I really find this style of singing appealing. What this says about my cauterized emotional receptors I’m not sure, but they’re worth a listen. Biggest hit so far is the corrido “Chuy Verduras,” and the band also has a rewarding new series of videos where they play live in a garage.

H-100’s sometime labelmates and duet partners Los Nuevos Rebeldes have a new live album with Banda La Conquista, (En Vivo), that has one of the busiest covers I’ve ever seen. The cover matches the sound, where the crowd is barely audible but every instrument is dry and upfront. Given the Conquista trumpeters’ haphazard approach to tuning, this strategy has its drawbacks. I’m not finding Youtube excerpts, but here’s one of those garage concerts with all the same players and then some.

The sextet-or-septet Puro Domador (aka Domador de la Sierra) play a fusion of grupero and Tierra Caliente, which in the case of single “Tu Profesor” means happy norteño pop with a sax, tambora, and a keyboard that I think is playing some very convincing tuba lines — but miraculously without any cheesy basement-psycho synth leads. The fusion has NorteñoBlog’s approval.

March 10, 2015 1