VARIOUS
Saturno 2000 – La Rebajada De Los Sonideros 1962-1983 (Analog Africa)
Rebajada is Mexico’s closest equivalent of screwed and chopped music: popular club sounds (in this case, the cumbia that proliferates across South and Central America) slowed down by DJs to serve a growing subculture (in this case, dancers who can bust better moves at this tempo). But who is the ultimate pioneer, the DJ Screw of rebajada? Turns out, per the illuminating sleevenotes to Saturno 2000, that’s a contentious question, with a turntable repairman in Mexico City and a party host in Monterrey each staking a claim.
The 15 songs on this compilation hail from South America save for a couple of Mexican sides, and mostly predate the rebajada boom, but are pitched down to reprise the slow’n’low lopes you’d have heard in the heyday, thanks to top digger DJ Lengua. It sounds imperious and mad funky, like basically all old skool cumbia, but with a cool and sometimes sinister (Conjunto Típico Contreras’ Capricho Egipcio) new context. Another Analog Africa smash, guaranteed no duffers.
words NOEL GARDNER
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