Dengue Dengue Dengue, "Banyuwangi" (Enchufada)
Over the last seven years, Berlin-via-Lima, Peru ensemble Dengue Dengue Dengue have progressed to the forefront of South America's digital cumbia movement. The press release for their extraordinary new album, Zenit & Nadir, refers to genres (zouk, kuduro) and an instrument (the quijada, a percussive tool forged from a donkey’s jawbone; you can see it played here) with which I'm not very familiar. However, no esoteric knowledge is necessary to realize that this shit is amazing. The strange timbres and unconventionally hypnotic rhythms that DDD generate from these elements coalesce into a record that feels at once ancient and futuristic, as well as inexhaustible in its inventiveness.
For this album, DDD members Felipe Salmon and Rafael Pereira enlisted members of the Ballumbrosio family, a revered Peruvian musical dynasty. The Ballumbrosios bring their expertise for landĂł, festejo, and crioullo rhythms (all new terms to me) to DDD's mysterious, hyperreal productions, helping the duo to cast wicked spells over Zenit & Nadir's 12 tracks.
"Banyuwangi" burbles with an undulating swiftness, like a Southern Hemisphere cousin of Talking Heads' "I Zimbra." A woodwind instrument—ocarina? piccolo? flute?—flutters spiritually over the oddly metallic percussive ripples, and by the track's midpoint, I don't who or where I am... nor do I care. You have no idea how rare and wonderful a feeling this is. "Banyuwangi" is one Ricardo Villalobos remix away from becoming a global dance sensation. Somebody in Seattle please book Dengue Dengue Dengue.
