GLOBAL SOUNDS
World Beat Spectacular features Latin, African, Celtic fusion music
Mariposa Music founder Alex Paramo has rounded up some of the best local world beat, world music groups to play one night, under one roof.
The bands also represent several world beat and world music subgenres. The WorldBeat Spectacular Music Series II tonight at the Launchpad will feature Nosotros, Wagogo, Da Terra Meiga, Tesuque Revolt and DJ Ad Lib.
Nosotros is a nine-piece powerhouse that combines Latin rhythms with elements of rock, salsa, jazz and cumbia. Wagogo merges beats from Africa and Latin America with New Mexico influence. Da Terra Meiga is a Celtic group influenced by folk, flamenco rhythms and Afro-Cuban beats, according to Paramo.
New as the duo Tesuque Revolt but no strangers to the local music scene are Matias Pizarro of Stoic Frame and Michael Garcia of the Big Spank.
“Back in the mid- to late ’90s and 2000s, you know, Mike was off with the Big Spank,” Pizarro said. “He bought a tour bus and traveled the whole nation, and I moved to California with Stoic Frame back in 2002 and we would always cross paths on the road. These guys would hit up California. We’d meet back up in New Mexico. We always met up at one place or another. But then we ended up in San Diego for reasons other than music, and I think we were kind of on a brief hiatus from bands and so we just kind of concentrated on surfing, but then music just kind of came to us on its own.”
Pizarro and Garcia now make music together without living in the same city. Pizarro lives in California, and Garcia resides in Albuquerque. But through Skype, file sharing, a cloud platform called Splice and other software, the two have made it work. Relying on applications and software to communicate and create has molded the duo’s sound.
“We both played a lot of Latin music, so when we first started playing in San Diego, it was more of an organic sound,” Garcia said. “We added a little bit more of the electronics, but once I moved back to Albuquerque, we had to kind of really stretch our minds and figure out how to keep this project going. It became a little more electronic in how we recorded things, and the distance really formed the sound of the band.”