If you love My KUTX, consider becoming a member today during our fall membership drive! Your support powers eclectic guest DJ sets 52 weeks a year. Become a member today.
A prediction: a few decades from now, we’ll look back on Austin’s current scene as a golden age for boundary-pushing Latin artists. Grupo Fantasma has the Grammy-winning sound. Brownout covers all things Latin funk with dips into metal and rap. On the pop side of things, there’s Gina Chavez’s infectious grooves and Lesly Reynaga’s modernist mariachi. Money Chicha brings psychedelic cumbia to a new generation. Superfónicos and Kiko Villamizar offer differing crash courses in Colombian traditions. Adrian Quesada is a total world-builder with his solo albums. Como Las Movies adds an electro-pop sheen to Tex-Mex border influences. Caramelo Haze made one of the best, funkiest albums of 2022, and the Los Sundowns offer a gnarly, darker instrumental take on Latin psychedelia. I keep having all of these artists as guest DJs (multiple times–guilty as charged) because I think they’re consistently making the best music Austin has to offer.
Enter Nemegata. A trio with Colombian roots, the band perfectly fits into our city’s música en español scene while also carving out its own unique sound. Voces, the band’s new album, is a swirling, cosmic collage of influences both new and ancient. This thing is wild: synthesizers, fuzzed-out guitars, and Victor-Andrés Cruz’s skyscraping voice ride the band’s polyrhythmic pulse. You can see them in action at Waterloo Records on October 6 at 5 p.m. and at ACL Fest on October 14, where they play the Barton Springs Stage at noon. (Cruz also pulls double-duty in Caramelo Haze. Our scene runs deep.)
Cruz and his band mates César Valencia and Fabián Rincón are the collective guest DJ this week on My KUTX. They take us on a trip through their many musical inspirations, from Caribbean rhythms and desert blues to the many folk traditions of their native Colombia. Hear Nemegata’s My KUTX on Saturday, September 30 at 6 p.m., or listen anytime right here.
Playlist:
- Viva Les Difficiles – “Espoir / Composition X”
- Songhoy Blues – “Worry”
- Tshegue – “Muanapoto”
- Mariana Carrizo – “Coplas de Sangre”
- Anibal Velásquez y Su Conjunto – “Mambo Loco”
- Banda 19 de Marzo de Laguneta – “La Espuela del Bagre”
- Rita Indiana – “Mandinga Times” (feat. Kiko El Crazy)
- Velandia y La Tigra – “El Tigre” (feat. El Supersón Frailejónico)
- Voces del Bullerengue – “Me Estoy Peinando (Bullerengue Sentao)” [feat. Juana del Toro]
- Manzanita – “Agua”
- Abelardo Carbonó y Su Conjunto – “Quiero a Mi Gente”
- La Muchacha – “Canto Páramo”
