Trippy Tropical Sounds From Rising Stars of the Once and Hopefully Future Barbes Scene

When Chicha Libre, the band responsible for introducing so much of the world to psychedelic cumbia, went on ice, their legendary Monday night Barbes residency was turned over to a new generation of slinky, trippy tropical acts. Locobeach were the first of that wave of acts to put out an album; now it’s Los Cumpleaños’ turn. Their debut release, Agua – streaming at Bandcamp – officially comes out today: a year from now, we can say “¡Feliz!”

Let’s just hope the band – singer/percussionist Nestor Gomez, keyboardist Eric Lane, trombonist Alex Asher and drummer Lautaro Burgos – are still around so that can happen. Barbes is cold and dark right now, and who knows how much longer musicians in this city can hold out without running out of basic necessities. Of course, there are always underground shows…but that’s something we can’t discuss here.

For now, we have the album. The first track, Camarones has shapeshiftingly loopy beats, blips and swirls from the synth and echoey trombone that echoes another Brooklyn band, deep dub reggae crew Super Hi-Fi.

There’s also classic 70s dub inside the the techy swirl and warp of the epic, practically ten-minute title cut. “Ole drinking water, keep on running,” is the message. To bad they had to autotune the vocals: a version without them would be infinitely more fun.

With its Balkan bagpipe loops, cascades, swells and fuzzily pouncing video game textures, Sonrisa will defininitely make you smile. A long, drifting outer-space baroque theme introduces the last song, Baile la Cumbia. Finally, the band stop teasing you and bring in a groove out of all that sticky green dub.