Neil Spencer 

Orkesta Mendoza: ¡Vamos a Guarachar! review – a joyous travelogue

(Glitterbeat)
  
  

Orkesta Mendoza: ‘tumble happily between countries and styles’
Orkesta Mendoza: ‘tumble happily between countries and styles’. Photograph: PR Company Handout

Folks south of the border, the one where Trump wants to build a wall, get vexed when “America” is taken as a synonym for the US – the place is a continent, they too are Americans! It’s a point made forcefully by this second album from polymath Sergio Mendoza, best known as part of Arizona band Calexico. The record tumbles happily between countries and styles; there’s the galloping country twang of Redoble, the Mexican mariachi horns of Mapache, the sedate Mambo a la Rosano, two slithering, madcap Colombian cumbias with splashes of rinkydink keyboards and a blast of garage rock on Caramelos. The elegant Calexico-like Shadows of the Mind completes a joyous travelogue.

 

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