Around the Húmisha: The music of the traditional Amazonian ensembles of Peru is a compilation that brings together for the first time various groups formed between the mid-60s and early 80s, which defined the sound of the popular music that emerged in the peruvian jungle. Here, genres of indigenous amazonian roots are presented, such as the pandilla, the chimaychi and the sitaracuy, which are typically performed in carnivals and regional amazonian festivals. These gatherings always culminate around a húmisha tree, a representative element of these celebrations, which is surrounded by a troupe of dancers who cut it down to the rhythm of a pandilla.
Based on these native genres, these traditional ensembles were nurtured by diverse influences, coming from the Andes (huaynos), the Peruvian coast (creole waltzes), as well as from neighboring countries such as Brazil (samba, tanguiño), Colombia (cumbia) and Ecuador (sanjuanitos). The music is perfomed using the traditional instrumentation of quena, bass drum and snare drum, sometimes suplemented with violin, clarinet, saxophone, guitar and maracas.
This compilation brings together songs from Conjunto Selva Alegre, Flor del Oriente y su Conjunto, Los Guacamayos, Los Solteritos, Dúo Loreto, Los Pihuichos de la Selva, Los Ribereños del Huallaga, Conjunto Esperanza de San Martín, Conjunto Típico Corazón de la Selva, Jibarito de la Selva con Los Mensajeros de la Selva, and Los Hijos de Lamas. These groups released records on the main Peruvian labels of the 70s and 80s; today, those albums are true collector's gems, hard to come by.
Here we find some indisputable classics from the Amazonian repertoire such as “La leyenda del pífano” by Adolfo Sandoval in the masterful interpretation of the Dúo Loreto, “El Pucacuro” by the Amazonian diva Flor del Oriente, the highly popular “Salta Yanasita” by the Conjunto Selva Alegre, as well as the classic “Alegría en la selva”, by the Conjunto típico Corazón de la selva, a true Amazonian anthem.
Following the success of the anthology The Fabulous Sound of Andrés Vargas Pinedo, and the launch of The Music of the Lamista Kechwas: Recordings of the Native Communities of Lamas, Buh Records presents this new volume dedicated to exploring this fascinating universe of traditional music from the Amazonian jungle, and this time with the launch of a collection and platform called Central Amazónica, which will be dedicated exclusively to the rescue of musical gems from the Peruvian Amazon. This album is released on vinyl LP format, with extensive information and visual documentation. Compilation and notes by Luis Alvarado. Art by René Sánchez.
This album is possible thanks to the Proyecto Especial Bicentenario fund
Boomkat Product Review:
Buh unearths another astonishing collection of Peruvian history on this eye-wateringly good set of genre-bursting traditional Amazonian ensemble music from the 1960s to the early 1980s.
In the 1960s, the music that emerged from the Peruvian jungle was a flexible blend of indigenous Amazonion styles - such as pandilla, chimaychi, and sitaracuy, forms that rotate around carnival and festival traditions - and music that seeped in from elsewhere. There was huayno from the Andes, creole waltz from the Peruvian coast, cumbia from Colombia, samba and tanguiño from Brazil and sanjuanitos from Ecuador that all made an impact on Peru's evolving indigenous sounds. "Alrededor de la Húmisha" captures this fascinating time period, collecting rare recordings from a handful of local groups that got to record for the country's main labels in the 1970s and 1980s.
The music presented here is revelatory; without a firm background in its root elements, there's a sense of wonder as you're hearing local instruments - like the quena, a traditional Andean flute - combined with percussion, saxophone, guitar, clarinet and violin. The songs dip and dive into familiar and unfamiliar tempos, absorbing beats from adjacent cultures and dissolving them into carnivalesque celebrations of local culture. The earliest recording presented here is 'Alegria en la Selva' from Conjunto Típico Corazón de la Selva; released in 1966, it combines celebratory folk forms - played on violin and quena - with kinetic rhythms and evocative vocal chants. In contrast, Dúo Loreto's 1967 recording 'La Leyenda del Pífano' is more horizontal, spinning a woozy narrative using plucked acoustic guitar and soaring, romantic vocals.
The later material dips into weirder places, like Los Guacamayos' 'Recuerdos de Selva', a stripped down percussion-heavy quena jam that sounds as if it coulda tripped and fallen off a Madlib beat tape, or Los Ribereños del Huallaga's 1983-released 'Pífano Humano' that builds on a rousing beat to provoke a celebratory, ritualistic mood. The anthology's most recent recording is the album's finale, a 2002 piece from Los Hijos de Lamas that shows these hybrid folk-pop forms are still informing the DNA of Peruvian music.
Essential listening, incredible music..
By Louis Reader
https://soundsandcolours.com/
Buh Records has an extensive back catalogue of new, experimental and alternative music coming from the Peruvian capital Lima. Since the label’s creation in 2004 it has supported mostly contemporary artists, yet this stunning compilation delves deep into the Amazonian region of Peru, presenting the music of the conjuntos típicos which formed between the mid-60s to early 80s. These “typical ensembles” are responsible for bringing traditional Indigenous music that emerged from the Peruvian jungle to a wider audience. Luis Alvarado, label manager and curator of Alredador de la Humisha, brings forth lesser known genres of Indigenous Amazonian roots, such as the pandilla, chimaychi and the sitaracuy; genres that are primarily played during carnival celebrations in the region.
The title of the album Alrededor de la Humisha (Around the Humisha), refers to a ritual, in which on the final night of carnival, people congregate and dance around a humisha tree adorned with gifts. The tree is gradually felled with an axe and the gifts gathered. All of this is accompanied by the sounds of traditional ensembles playing the quena (traditional Amazonian flute), bass drum, snare drum and other additions such as violin, clarinet, saxophone, guitar and maracas.
Carnival celebrations, which arrived from Europe, are present across all of Latin America and have evolved differently from region to region. The title of the album pays homage to a significant representative element of the celebrations and each track evokes the spirit of carnival, as well as being testament to the unique way in which carnival music has evolved in this somewhat isolated region.
This is, at its essence, ritualistic music with diverse influences. From start to finish listeners will be taken on a journey where the tracks glide seamlessly from highly percussive pieces to others with influences from Andean huaynos, cumbias, waltzes, samba and even tracks bearing a strange similarity to ancient Celtic music.
The compilation kicks off with “Salta Yanasita” by Conjunto Selva Alegre de San Martin, a powerful number with a hypnotic drum beat, jumpy vocals and frenetic whistling, whilst “La Leyenda de Pifano” by Duo Loreto, a lament of chimaychi origin, is lighter on the percussion though made up for with an enchanting melody and accompanied by delightful instrumentation. “El Shitanero” by Los Pihuicos is also stunning, with vocals, violin and quena all flowing together with the same uplifting and highly emotive melody.
Though the influences are wide and there are many elaborations in each genre, in its basic form the music is marked with a continuous drum beat whilst the melodic line is developed by the quena, appearing to imitate bird song. A fine example of this is “Recuerdos de Selva” by Los Guacamayos, an instrumental and highly percussive tune in which the marching-style snare beat shares similarities to the caixa (snare) section of Brazilian samba.
The compilation is a follow up to the release of El Fabuloso Sonido de Andrés Vargas Pinedo, and fans of the anthology will not be disappointed by this collection of sounds featuring not only Andres Vargas Pinedo’s band Los Pihuichos de la Selva but also close collaborators of the musician, like Jibarito de la Selva, Pinedo’s nephew.
Even more than a compilation, it forms part of a body of work from a project, set up and launched in conjunction with the album, called Central Amazonica; a platform created by Luis Alvarado to salvage and preserve Amazonian music at danger of being lost due to the mismanagement of musical archives. With funding from a governmental project set up to celebrate 200 years of independence in Peru, it also serves as a tribute to the many Indigenous groups celebrating freedom of expression after generations of repression from colonial powers and exploitative industries. Within the many groups, music has served as a common language, and the collective feelings that run deep can be heard throughout the album with each of these highly emotive and compelling tracks. This is music celebrating the everyday; songs about love, work, food and the Amazonian landscapes, all with a strong feeling of local identity and which comes to a climax once a year during the incredibly unique and expressive carnival.
Alrededor de la Húmisha: La música de los conjuntos típicos amazónicos de Perú
Label: Buh Records – BR159
Format: Vinyl, LP, Compilation
Visit: https://buhrecords.bandcamp.com/
Country: Peru
Released: 2022
Style: Andean Music, Folk, Hispanic American Folk Music
Source: Digital
Based on these native genres, these traditional ensembles were nurtured by diverse influences, coming from the Andes (huaynos), the Peruvian coast (creole waltzes), as well as from neighboring countries such as Brazil (samba, tanguiño), Colombia (cumbia) and Ecuador (sanjuanitos). The music is perfomed using the traditional instrumentation of quena, bass drum and snare drum, sometimes suplemented with violin, clarinet, saxophone, guitar and maracas.
This compilation brings together songs from Conjunto Selva Alegre, Flor del Oriente y su Conjunto, Los Guacamayos, Los Solteritos, Dúo Loreto, Los Pihuichos de la Selva, Los Ribereños del Huallaga, Conjunto Esperanza de San Martín, Conjunto Típico Corazón de la Selva, Jibarito de la Selva con Los Mensajeros de la Selva, and Los Hijos de Lamas. These groups released records on the main Peruvian labels of the 70s and 80s; today, those albums are true collector's gems, hard to come by.
Here we find some indisputable classics from the Amazonian repertoire such as “La leyenda del pífano” by Adolfo Sandoval in the masterful interpretation of the Dúo Loreto, “El Pucacuro” by the Amazonian diva Flor del Oriente, the highly popular “Salta Yanasita” by the Conjunto Selva Alegre, as well as the classic “Alegría en la selva”, by the Conjunto típico Corazón de la selva, a true Amazonian anthem.
Following the success of the anthology The Fabulous Sound of Andrés Vargas Pinedo, and the launch of The Music of the Lamista Kechwas: Recordings of the Native Communities of Lamas, Buh Records presents this new volume dedicated to exploring this fascinating universe of traditional music from the Amazonian jungle, and this time with the launch of a collection and platform called Central Amazónica, which will be dedicated exclusively to the rescue of musical gems from the Peruvian Amazon. This album is released on vinyl LP format, with extensive information and visual documentation. Compilation and notes by Luis Alvarado. Art by René Sánchez.
This album is possible thanks to the Proyecto Especial Bicentenario fund
Boomkat Product Review:
Buh unearths another astonishing collection of Peruvian history on this eye-wateringly good set of genre-bursting traditional Amazonian ensemble music from the 1960s to the early 1980s.
In the 1960s, the music that emerged from the Peruvian jungle was a flexible blend of indigenous Amazonion styles - such as pandilla, chimaychi, and sitaracuy, forms that rotate around carnival and festival traditions - and music that seeped in from elsewhere. There was huayno from the Andes, creole waltz from the Peruvian coast, cumbia from Colombia, samba and tanguiño from Brazil and sanjuanitos from Ecuador that all made an impact on Peru's evolving indigenous sounds. "Alrededor de la Húmisha" captures this fascinating time period, collecting rare recordings from a handful of local groups that got to record for the country's main labels in the 1970s and 1980s.
The music presented here is revelatory; without a firm background in its root elements, there's a sense of wonder as you're hearing local instruments - like the quena, a traditional Andean flute - combined with percussion, saxophone, guitar, clarinet and violin. The songs dip and dive into familiar and unfamiliar tempos, absorbing beats from adjacent cultures and dissolving them into carnivalesque celebrations of local culture. The earliest recording presented here is 'Alegria en la Selva' from Conjunto Típico Corazón de la Selva; released in 1966, it combines celebratory folk forms - played on violin and quena - with kinetic rhythms and evocative vocal chants. In contrast, Dúo Loreto's 1967 recording 'La Leyenda del Pífano' is more horizontal, spinning a woozy narrative using plucked acoustic guitar and soaring, romantic vocals.
The later material dips into weirder places, like Los Guacamayos' 'Recuerdos de Selva', a stripped down percussion-heavy quena jam that sounds as if it coulda tripped and fallen off a Madlib beat tape, or Los Ribereños del Huallaga's 1983-released 'Pífano Humano' that builds on a rousing beat to provoke a celebratory, ritualistic mood. The anthology's most recent recording is the album's finale, a 2002 piece from Los Hijos de Lamas that shows these hybrid folk-pop forms are still informing the DNA of Peruvian music.
Essential listening, incredible music..
https://soundsandcolours.com/
Buh Records has an extensive back catalogue of new, experimental and alternative music coming from the Peruvian capital Lima. Since the label’s creation in 2004 it has supported mostly contemporary artists, yet this stunning compilation delves deep into the Amazonian region of Peru, presenting the music of the conjuntos típicos which formed between the mid-60s to early 80s. These “typical ensembles” are responsible for bringing traditional Indigenous music that emerged from the Peruvian jungle to a wider audience. Luis Alvarado, label manager and curator of Alredador de la Humisha, brings forth lesser known genres of Indigenous Amazonian roots, such as the pandilla, chimaychi and the sitaracuy; genres that are primarily played during carnival celebrations in the region.
The title of the album Alrededor de la Humisha (Around the Humisha), refers to a ritual, in which on the final night of carnival, people congregate and dance around a humisha tree adorned with gifts. The tree is gradually felled with an axe and the gifts gathered. All of this is accompanied by the sounds of traditional ensembles playing the quena (traditional Amazonian flute), bass drum, snare drum and other additions such as violin, clarinet, saxophone, guitar and maracas.
Carnival celebrations, which arrived from Europe, are present across all of Latin America and have evolved differently from region to region. The title of the album pays homage to a significant representative element of the celebrations and each track evokes the spirit of carnival, as well as being testament to the unique way in which carnival music has evolved in this somewhat isolated region.
This is, at its essence, ritualistic music with diverse influences. From start to finish listeners will be taken on a journey where the tracks glide seamlessly from highly percussive pieces to others with influences from Andean huaynos, cumbias, waltzes, samba and even tracks bearing a strange similarity to ancient Celtic music.
The compilation kicks off with “Salta Yanasita” by Conjunto Selva Alegre de San Martin, a powerful number with a hypnotic drum beat, jumpy vocals and frenetic whistling, whilst “La Leyenda de Pifano” by Duo Loreto, a lament of chimaychi origin, is lighter on the percussion though made up for with an enchanting melody and accompanied by delightful instrumentation. “El Shitanero” by Los Pihuicos is also stunning, with vocals, violin and quena all flowing together with the same uplifting and highly emotive melody.
Though the influences are wide and there are many elaborations in each genre, in its basic form the music is marked with a continuous drum beat whilst the melodic line is developed by the quena, appearing to imitate bird song. A fine example of this is “Recuerdos de Selva” by Los Guacamayos, an instrumental and highly percussive tune in which the marching-style snare beat shares similarities to the caixa (snare) section of Brazilian samba.
The compilation is a follow up to the release of El Fabuloso Sonido de Andrés Vargas Pinedo, and fans of the anthology will not be disappointed by this collection of sounds featuring not only Andres Vargas Pinedo’s band Los Pihuichos de la Selva but also close collaborators of the musician, like Jibarito de la Selva, Pinedo’s nephew.
Even more than a compilation, it forms part of a body of work from a project, set up and launched in conjunction with the album, called Central Amazonica; a platform created by Luis Alvarado to salvage and preserve Amazonian music at danger of being lost due to the mismanagement of musical archives. With funding from a governmental project set up to celebrate 200 years of independence in Peru, it also serves as a tribute to the many Indigenous groups celebrating freedom of expression after generations of repression from colonial powers and exploitative industries. Within the many groups, music has served as a common language, and the collective feelings that run deep can be heard throughout the album with each of these highly emotive and compelling tracks. This is music celebrating the everyday; songs about love, work, food and the Amazonian landscapes, all with a strong feeling of local identity and which comes to a climax once a year during the incredibly unique and expressive carnival.
Alrededor de la Húmisha: La música de los conjuntos típicos amazónicos de Perú
Label: Buh Records – BR159
Format: Vinyl, LP, Compilation
Visit: https://buhrecords.bandcamp.com/
Country: Peru
Released: 2022
Style: Andean Music, Folk, Hispanic American Folk Music
Source: Digital
1. Conjunto Selva Alegre de San Martín - Salta yanasita (1977) 3:12
2. Flor del Oriente y Conjunto - El Pucacuro (1973) 2:37
3. Los Guacamayos - Recuerdos de Selva (1971) 2:26
4. Los solteritos - Nunca me olvides (1967) 2:25
5. Dúo Loreto - La Leyenda del Pífano (1967) 3:12
6. Los Pihuichos de la Selva - La Pungara (1971) 2:34
7. Los Ribereños del Huallaga - El masatillo de mi Abuelita (1983) 2:36
8. Los Ribereños del Huallaga - Pífano Humano (1983) 2:45
9. Conjunto Esperanza de San Martín - La Pamashtinita (1978) 2:43
10. Conjunto Típico Corazón de la Selva - Alegria en la Selva (1966) 2:47
11. Los Pihuichos de la Selva - El Shitanero (1973) 2:33
12. Eliseo Reátegui y Los Solteritos - Carnaval de mi pueblo (1982) 3:41
13. Jibarito de la Selva - Llegó la Merma (1989) 3:55
14. Los Hijos de Lamas - Viajero de Ruta (2002) 3:09
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