Cumbia Cosmonauts Interview

As part of Soulshine’s coverage of the Australasian World Music Expo being held in Melbourne this November, we caught up with the Saca La Mois DJ (aka Moses Iten) founder of the Cumbia Cosmonauts to discuss all things “Cumbia” and the world’s biggest Caribbean festival. The track ‘Cumbianauts Incoming’ is available to stream for this interview.

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SS: The style of music “Cumbia” is relatively unknown in Australia. How would you describe it to the novice?

 CC: Cumbia is the name of a rhythm and genre of music considered one of Colombia’s national folk music styles, but is extremely popular with the masses throughout Latin America.  Whether played slow or fast, it makes anyone want to dance.  Considered a fusion of African rhythms with Indigenous and European instrumentation, cumbia’s boom time were the Colombian big band arrangements of the 50s and 60s. Whilst the accessible rhythm is a constant, in each country it‘s taken on a different twist such as the psychedelic guitar riffs in Peruvian cumbia and the cheap, blocky beats of Argentine ghetto cumbia.  Producers Soup (a.k.a. Thomas Campbell) and I play with ideas from all these styles, and obviously add our own flavours.  All the talented guest musicians we work with live and in the studio then also add all their own ideas and influences to the mix.

SS: What was it about “Cumbia” music that first drew your attention?

 CC: Not just that it laughs in the face of adversity, but that it’s very confident all-embracing, inclusive style, to which nothing is taboo and there are no rules except having a good time.  It is the soundtrack of survivors, and as such can be heard everywhere where people live more on wit than money.  The music reflects all this, and the Cumbia Cosmonauts aim to reflect this culture.

SS: You were previously known mainly as a DJ, can you describe your evolution from DJ to the Cumbia Cosmonauts?

 CC: My own background is in DJing exotic beats for both club dancefloors and a listening audience on the radio, and physically travelling the world hearing, seeing and collecting music first hand. After a lengthy DJ tour back to Mexico in 2007, I decided to prioritise DJing cumbia above any other music.  Coming back with a stash of pirated CDs from all over Mexico, and then jumping on the web back in Australia I discovered exciting “experimental cumbia” popping up in the undergound scenes of Mexico City (La Supercumbia Futurista), Buenos Aires (ZZK Records), and even San Francisco (Tormenta Tropical/Bersa Discos).  Cumbia became more than an obsession.  For me it is not simply a genre or style of music, but rather an inclusive culture, an anti-pretentious attitude, and I feel free to play all types of stuff and call it cumbia.  Destiny brought cumbia-loving accordion player Carlos Parraga to an outdoor party where I was DJing cumbias Sonidero style on Soup’s Sound System, and a few weeks later the three of us sat in the studio and wrote our first song ‘Cumbianauts Incoming’.  We played our first live show once we had like four songs ready and never looked back: doing remixes; collaborating with heaps of musicians; touring Europe…

SS: You recently toured Europe, how did the European crowds react to an Australian band playing “Cumbia” music?

 CC: Last year I played as a DJ at the world’s biggest Caribbean festival, the Antilliaanse Feesten in Belgium.  I’m sure I was booked mainly because the Festival Director thought it hilarious that there exists an Australian DJ/producer of cumbia. Fortunately the crowd loved what I played so the festival invited back the whole band this year.  I then started booking a whole tour because of this first invitation. The reaction was similar everywhere.  Two of my first big inspirations in cumbia experimentation were actually Europeans with a deep Latin America connection (Senor Coconut/AtomTM and Dick El Demasiado), so for Europeans to hear an Australian crew to join the mix is not so strange.  But beyond producers, there is now a DJ and a residency mainly playing cumbia - or Tropical Bass - in most European cities so we have our circuit there and the crowds coming to our shows already knew our music.  It was a very inspiring tour, and we also played with, jammed and hung out with some of our cumbia-heroes from Latin America.  Next up we would love to tour North- and South-America!

SS: What’s coming up for Cumbia Cosmonauts over the summer?

 CC: It’s time to record properly songs written for live shows and on the road, as an album is our next mission so we are going to be very busy.  Meanwhile it’s time to get others to remix us, after us having done plenty remixes for others.  Watch out for this to be released soon.  But being summer we can’t spend all our time in the studio so we’re playing some great festivals like Shine On (VIC), Woodford Folk Festival (QLD) and Rainbow Serpent (VIC).

Cumbia Cosmonauts are Moses Iten (vox, lasers, fx, samples) and Thomas Campbell (mix, fx, dubbing, scratch, guitar), Carlos Parraga (accordion, percussion, casio), Gustavo Moreno (percussion) and Martin Hadley (VJ visuals).

They are appearing at the Australasian World Music Expo on Thursday 18th November 2010 at the Toff in Town with Tijuana Cartel (Australia), Busby Marou (Australia) + DJ Simon Winkler (Australia). Tickets are $10 + BF fromwww.thetoffintown.com

Reviews

“…South American dance rhythms are exciting international audiences more familiar with techno and hip hop – nowhere more so than in Melbourne where cumbia and dub is fused by the floor-filling Cumbia Cosmonauts project. Prepare for cultural collisions and donkeys in space…” – Brent Clough, ‘The Night Air’ ABC Radio National

“The Cumbia Cosmonauts bring a stripped back, at times dubbed-out re-version to the fore, hinting that a twist on the Cumbian-norm might be Australia’s next top export.” – Stu Buchanan, FBi Radio Sydney

http://www.myspace.com/cumbiacosmonauts