The New Cool

There are a lot of mash-ups happening in music these days, and here is one that I'm surprised has not been tried before:



The band is Caravan Palace from France, and they take French swing and combine it with dance-floor electronics. Could this be the first signs of the next swing revival? Or just one really fun band to see live? Here's to landing an early 2010 Cedar gig with these guys.

Meanwhile, here's a unique mash-up already on the caledar (September 12, 2009):



This one's called Chicha Libre; CHICHA is the name of a corn-based liquor favored by the Incas in pre-colombian days. Chicha is also the name of a South American music craze which started out in the late 70's in the Peruvian Amazon. Cumbias amazonicas, as they were first called, were loosely inspired by Colombian accordion-driven cumbias but soon incorporated the distinctive sounds of Andean melodies, some Cuban son, and the psychedelic sounds of surf guitars, farfisa organs and moog synthesizers. Check out more tunes on their MySpace page.

This is the new cool, folks.