Los síquicos litoraleños

Sham Palace (USA) and Annihaya (Lebanon) are pleased to present from the mystical locus of Curuzú Cuatiá, in Corrientes, rural northeastern Argentina, Los Siquicos Litoraleños, with their first international full-length release. The result: a unique triumph of homegrown rural psychedelia, standing alone on the edge of an unchartered vanguard. Los Siquicos have spent the past decade recording and performing mountains of material and distilling it into a rare form of ultra-cerebral roots music from the countryside; rich with strange passion, beauty, experimentation, horror and humor. Corrientes sits in the Argentine Mesopotamic region, in the area known as el Litoral. Inhabitants of this region are known as Litoraleños. Los Siquicos Litoraleños (The Psychics of el Litoral) aren't running from their musical heritage, they are staring straight at it -- spinning it around, refracting it, and transmuting it into something that is probably one of the most genuine things that has happened to folk, rock, experimental or psychedelic music in many years. Having met through various musical projects in the mid-2000s, Los Siquicos formed as a trio in 2004, determined to develop an unheard style of music. They created their own genre -- Chipadelia, (a reference to the traditional chipá bread, typical of northeast Argentina and Paraguay). It involves equalizational demolition therapy -- which they describe as 'using sound to change people's perceptions, and words to produce cognitive dissonance in order to free the masses from the prison of fixed ideas and prejudices.' Being a peripheral band living in a semi-rural town, Los Siquicos remained outsiders to the Argentinian rock circuit for quite a while, though their unpredictable live performances in Buenos Aires caused a stir amongst the local scene. Their shows often feature extended line-ups, with members cloaked in surreal gaucho costumes, playing segments of free-music and altered versions of chamamé and cumbia tunes influenced by the myriad regional gaucho dance bands. All the while, projections of cows, fractals, UFOs and their beloved countryside play out in the background. At home, they're affectionately referred to as 'El Pink Floyd de los pobres' -- the poor man's Pink Floyd. Over time, the group has gained underground acclaim both nationally and abroad after sending their signals out in the form of self-released CDs, internet presence, and a handful of European tours. This collection has been culled from multiple recordings made between 2005 and 2010. It showcases some of the finest compositional moments in the group's dense and damaged repertoire -- pitched-down cumbias soaked in dub brine, swirling solar instrumentals, and surrealist, shamanic lyrics laid across guitars, drums, tapes and electronics. Forty-four minutes of deep, multi-fidelity electric and acoustic psychic sound-forms for a better today. Los Siquicos Litoraleños are the contemporary group you keep hoping exist, but can never find. If you were to reach for spiritual comparisons, you wouldn't be forgetting the most spirited moments from Sun City Girls, Butthole Surfers, Faust, Os Mutantes, Captain Beefheart or The Residents. Sonido Chipadelico opens with the mind-melting psych-rocker 'Cinta Planeteria' -- like a Latin American time-travel experiment gone wrong. 'Cachaka Espejo,' 'Tenemos Semillas' and 'No Sabemos Nada' reinvent cumbia radio tunes as if heard from a distance of at least two blocks away on a dirt road in the barrio, then deconstructed, propelled into the outer ether, and beamed back into a burning dub transistor. 'El Chipa Chiriri' is a subverted chamamé-styled track -- revealing the recipe for the local Corrientes cheese bread. 'Necesita Ecualisacion' is a call for aural and mental equilibrium encouraging change rapidly from the present state of things to an improved and more complex, flexible state. The hypnotic 'Sirena Chunga y la Movida Solar' is perhaps one of the strangest folkloric songs ever committed to tape -- not unlike what light must hear when it travels inside of a vacuum. 'Si, Si, Si' is an uptempo, angular anthem in collaboration with Dutch experimental duo Static Tics. Also included is Los Siquicos' haunting acid-ballad cover of 'Quizás, Quizás,' and much more -- further into the greater depths of sound and surprise..." --Mark Gergis

--The live shows eventually mutated legendary elaborate performances, with characters such as “El Entraterrestre” (The Intraterrestrial) dressed in a robe with an E.T. mask throwing tarot cards at the audience’s heads. Strange videos were emerging of the group playing outdoors in full regalia. People began catching wind of Los Siquicos via the internet and word of mouth. Their locally-released CD-Rs were difficult to come by abroad, but occasionally a few new tracks would go up on their MySpace page ¬– sustaining the belief that something very strange was continuing to disrupt the Argentinian countryside.

--- Nutria Rocha, Kuku Mente, Nicola Aparicio Kokote, Wilsorrr Burzack, Diego "El Entraterrestre" Seoane. Tambien y desde la distancia transatlantica Pedro "Pipo el sucio" Buschi para no olvidar a los lejanos multiinstrumentistas Gurí Rojo y Lucas Lopez.