Nortec Collective

Nobody has made Mexican country music hip like Nortec. It's all here: chopped and scrambled banda music, liberal accordion, the sense of ironic cool that turns these songs into an in-joke that everybody's eager to share. But a bit of tenderness has crept into the interstices; every few songs, Bostich and Fussible give up knob-twiddling and dwell lovingly on an acoustic guitar or a horn and let it speak its piece. They turn out to be pretty good songwriters, too -- witness "Brown Bike," "Jacinto" and "Playbox." This is the evolution we've been waiting for.