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Top 10 Latin Alt Albums, Summer 2012

by Rachel Devitt

Latin music is all too often reduced to dance-pop, tropical and regional Mexican styles only. Meanwhile, mainstream indie rock (what? it's a thing) is dominated by English-speakers. And what gets left out of those equations? Well, just about every band on this list, for starters. Once the provenance of post-grunge stadium rockers, Latin alt or indie today is a wealth of fascinating scenes and sounds.

Don't take our word for it: Check out the awesome Latin indie culture site Remezcla, where you'll also find lots of great recaps and video footage from this past week's Latin Alternative Music Conference, the annual showcase of awesome Latin indie-pop, rock, electronic music and hip-hop. You'll find quite a few LAMC participants and performers on our roundup of some of this year's top Latin alt albums so far (such as the woman behind #1, Xenia Rubinos!), plus a bunch more chunky dance beats, alt- folklorico, vintage psychedelic cuts, killer indie rock and shimmering electro-pop. Dive in!

Canibalismo

Chicha Libre

Besides a play on (racist) vintage exotica, Chicha Libre's second album title is also a reference to musically omnivorous habits -- habits these expat New Yorkers who play an obscure form of Peruvian psychedelic cumbia have hung their hats on. With chicha as its wavering foundation, Canibalismo gobbles up hits of nearly every complementary style: spaghetti western, surf rock, French café pop, samba and more. But don't let the acid haze fool you: The Scooby Doo slink of "Danza Del Millonario" and even the chicha-fying of Wagner are tightly coiled, carefully crafted grooves.

Bonanza

Panda

Banda de Turistas

This Banda's always sounded like what they're touring is Abbey Road. But this time, the Argentinean rockers significantly expand their Sgt. Peppery palate to include a range of indie flavors -- churning garage rock ("Amigos"), blippy synth pop ("Arriba del Tiger"), robo-psychedelica ("Mil Veces Más") -- delivering it all with that cool passion they're known for. Just when you begin to worry their Fab Four fascination has begun to wane, however, they bare their lonely hearts on closing track "Alumbra."

Rebeldes

Alex Anwandter

Alex Anwandter's Rebeldes paints a portrait of a young artist who is equal parts perpetually ironic, throwback-loving electro-dance hipster and excruciatingly earnest pop fan. And most of the time on the Chilean indie-popper's debut, it's hard to tell where the line between the two is. Razor-thin vocals dance detachedly over beats that bounce from disco to Latin freestyle, '80s synth pop to '90s acid-hop, all of it grounded in a loving homage to Latin pop. The opening track shimmers between Jamiroquai funk, disco and what sounds like a Technotronic sample -- and that's just the beginning.

Indian Summer

Monica Lionheart

Monica Lionheart couldn't have picked a more evocative title for her solo debut. Everything on Indian Summer sounds as if it were basking in the golden, stolen sunlight of a late afternoon during summer's last gasp. Much of that vibe comes from the fact that the Pacha Massive singer's vocals were cut with a fuzzier, more cottony effect than the slightly crisper electro-acoustic beats. But Lionheart also chooses a wide range of lazy, hazy styles to steep each track in: "Air and Sea" sleepily nods to alt-country, "Relampago" gets trip-hoppy and the epically gorgeous "Sombras" is a wee bit bossa.

Los Miticos del Ritmo (feat. Quantic) [Soundway Records]

Los Miticos Del Ritmo

The Soundway debut of Will “Quantic” Holland’s cumbia outfit is a kind of live reenactment of Holland’s own study of Colombian musical history since moving there in 2007 -- and of his engagement with it. Los Miticos is awash in the vintage tropi-cumbia of the 1960s, from the musicians (all respected locals with long histories) to the all-analog recording. But it’s also playfully anachronistic: Tucked in among classic cumbia and vallenato cuts are ironic, cumbia-fied covers of Queen and Michael Jackson and tracks like “Noche de Tamborito,” which works in bits of klezmer to jazz.

Turista del Amor

Jotdog

With a fantastic name (say it like the food), a fabulous album title and a deliciously campy cover to match, one might expect this Mexican outfit to be kind of zany. But their second album delivers pretty straight-up (and quite pretty) electro-pop. Gauzy beats, shimmering synths and Maria Barracuda's sexy, ice queen vocals make every track sound like a soundtrack for beautiful people's lives. But it's also fun when the duo takes off in weirder directions, like the hints of spaghetti western on "Corazon de Metal" or the creepy land of forgotten hip-hop toys that is "Ya Se Murio."