DJ: El Remolón
MIXTAPE: Selva
Ñu-cumbia pioneer El Remolón has a new album coming out, his fifth official release, and as usual, he put together a mixtape to help promote it. A lot more dance-oriented than his previous work, featured a year ago in this column, Selva (as you might be able to infer by the title and art) is also a deeper exploration of his shamanic, trippy side.
For the last couple of years Remolón has been incorporating live instrumentation into his shows, thus expanding his already versatile palette even more. This becomes more evident than ever in Selva, where the use of samples is a lot less prevalent than the ñu-cumbia usual.
In an hour-plus of uninterrupted digital cumbia, El Remolón has plenty of time to show off his new work (including guest appearances by Miss Bolivia, Lido Pimienta, and Kumbia Queers’ Ali Gua Gua), plenty of his remixes and exclusive edits, plus a few pieces done by friends like Dengue Dengue Dengue, El Búho, and Black Mandingo, who, no doubt, owe a lot of their sound to the pioneering experiments of El Remolón.