Rating:
Genre:
Electronica
Release Date: 05/06/2008
Though
Tijuana Sound Machine is credited to the
Nortec Collective as a whole, this time out only collective leader
Pepe Mogt and majordomo
Ramon Amezcua are on hand. This makes
Tijuana Sound Machine considerably more focused and direct than the group's eclectic earlier releases.
Mogt's fundamental concept for the
Nortec Collective -- mixing the accordion, trumpets, guitarron and other key instruments of
norteño, the native
pop music of northern Mexico, with electronic beats and processing -- finds its purest form on
Tijuana Sound Machine: these 15 brief tracks, only four of which feature vocals, are (with only rare exceptions, most notably
"Brown Bike," which is basically a
Beck-style
pop song with sampled
norteño trumpets and stage-whispered English-language lyrics) pure
norteño, played on live acoustic instruments and only barely tweaked by the synths and samplers that predominated on the
Nortec Collective's last album,
The Tijuana Sessions, Vol. 3. The results might sound a bit cheesy to those not familiar with the glories of
norteño -- with its
polka beats and prominent accordions, many hipsters automatically (and incorrectly) mentally categorize it as a south of the border
Lawrence Welk, yet the pure fun of songs like the jumpy
"Mama Loves Nortec" and the hypnotic, dubby
"Rosarito" is hard to resist.
~Stewart Mason, All Music Guide
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