Pan Caliente: Buyepongo (Song Premiere)

When I came across a strange EP with a handwritten cover at Amoeba a couple years ago, I had no idea that what I would be popping in my CD player would be the rumblings of the Los Angeles musical underground.

Cumbia, merengue, and punta, emanated out of the speakers fused with Afro-Cuban, Latin jazz, and components of Chicano soul. It was a unique blend of sounds that communicated its polyrhythmic, party like energy, despite the somewhat poor recording.

It was clear to me at that very moment that I had to see this band live. I know I’m always talking about the “party” and bands that get people moving, and well it’s because I really do get tired of going to concerts and seeing audiences standing still… watching people on a stage… play instruments.

La musica es pa’ gozar. Dance it. Feel it. Let it create pulses and waves in your limbs. Whether you look like a Saturday night at the Mayan or an arrhythmic Burner at a rave let the music move you.

Buyepongo does just that, with a sound they’ve labeled as buyangú. We’ve got an exclusive premier of the first single from the band’s full-length album, Todo Mundo, due out next month. “Pegao”, is a track that presents music originating from Central & South America as interpreted by a band spawned in an ever changing Los Angeles, Latino, landscape. It is a warm, jazzy homage that conjures up the smoother sounds of merengue and punta.

Now that they’ve enlisted the production and engineering wand of Eugene Toale, it’s on par with some of the stuff that Quantic is doing with projects like Ondatopica as well as bands like Chicha Libre and La Misa Negra. It won’t be long before Buyepongo is whisked away from the LA music scene to perform on world stages. So catch them live sooner rather than later y… Baila!