Category: Review

Picante de Hueso is a very nicely orchestrated track with some back and forth dueling guitar segments. The B-Side starts out with a typical descarga riff later met by an interesting baseline. The song then cuts in with its main riff which ends with a response from the rhythm section. This is a very strong, recommended, single, as long as you aren’t sick of descargas yet.

Definitely one of the heaviest and strongest singles cut by Los Atomos. El Canguro (The Kangaroo) is not surprisingly an upbeat cumbia with arppegiated guitar riffs. La Caprichosa (The Whimsical Girl) is an equally catchy, fiery cut, albeit in a minor key, so it sounds a bit darker than the A-side. Highly Recommended.

Los Atomos (not to be confused with the Chilean band of the same name), one of a few bands to emerge with record deals from the musically vibrant north-of-Lima coastal town of Paramonga, Peru. The A-side is what you might call an innovative cumbia, others perhaps when it was released it called it a novelty and might help explain why this is a fairly rare cut. Cumbia Arabe attempts to meld traditional dark sounding minor key scales from the Middle East (North Africa?) into the Peruvian Cumbia paradigm. To my ears it works very well, and is recommended. I’m not sure if it’s my pressing or if it was intended, but it sounds woozy and wasted. The B-side is a more upbeat number, more run-of-the-mill, but good nonetheless. It has some nice guitar work and makes this a “file” worthy disc to add to your collection.

Judging by the amount of times I’ve seen this disc, this one must have sold well. The A side is a nice upbeat cumbia with some arpeggios and a little stop-and-go rhythmic work to really profile Aniceto’s adept playing. The staccato intro of the B side gives way to some fuzzed out climbing percussion-underscored riff that, to these ears, is very enjoyable. Things get better at the outro when Aniceto gives us one of his better recorded guitar freakouts, and I’m only saddened that this fades out as soon as it does as you can tell he was really letting loose.  Yet again, I find myself returning to the B side more often than Otra Noche Mas. This disc is not too hard to find and is definitely recommended for the great B side (A side is not bad, just not outstanding).

It’s around this time on the later DINSA releases that I find Aniceto is really coming into his own and has found his sound.Perhaps my favorite of all the 45s I’ve heard of AYSF, En Onda (Guajira Pop), starts out with a nice relaxed distorted fuzz tone over a lumbering rhythm section.  The song alternates its riff across octaves with some nice flourishes here and there but the vibe is over all relaxing. That is until the bridge around the 2:40 mark where in typical fashion Aniceto lets loose and begins to shred until this fades out. Great stuff. The party continues on the B side with a very upbeat and spirited cumbia, one of only a handful of Aniceto discs that the A side has stood the test of time. Amor Sayanero isn’t bad, but En Onda is what you’re after.

A lumbering slowly evolving song, La Miel De Tu Labios (listed as a Guaracha), has a nice rhythm section and nicely captures the percussive and at times staccato playing that Aniceto exceeds at. The catchier of the two songs lies in the B side “hitch hiking” (listed as a Guajira) a rapid number with a catchy theme and exemplifies all the best qualities of Los Fabulosos and Aniceto as he goes off on an extended solo excursion. This seems to be a rarer disc. Highly Recommended

A Disco Ramirez release this disc includes one of Aniceto’s first penned tunes El Ensarte which, to some extent, showcases what would be his standardized formula for song writing: have a main theme or head, then  solo a bit, while the rhythm section remains pinned to the beat, repeat as needed. It’s a solid start to a very entertaining career for the artist. The B side here is a cover listed as penned by Luis Pizarro Cerron (a major artist in the Huayno genre) and is a nice authentically and uniquely Peruvian cumbia of which the main theme easily places you in the Andes if you’ll only close your eyes.

El Espeso starts out routine enough, but at about the 1 minute mark Aniceto begins the guitar fireworks which make this a really nice track. Like so many of his other cuts however, the B side is the better song, La Sayanera switches between palm muted guitar riffs climbing triads and all across the fret board to create a very nice tune that is varied and remains interesting. Recommended.