Brownout: "Slinky"

Four words: psychedelic, Latin, funk, and rock. For me, resistance is futile. Last week I discovered (i.e. heard for the first time) Brownout and their album Homenaje. I got the album, played it a few times, and loved it. I imagine a lot of geezers like me, when they think about Latin rock, remember Santana and then draw a blank. Well, OK, the real hipsters might remember Captain Beyond's second album, Sufficiently Breathless (billed as "space Latin rock," but I always thought it owed more to The Allman Brothers...). Later there was Los Lobos, of course. But really, I have no idea what's been going on with Latin-based rock since forever. I still don't. I just know that whenever I hear stuff, it usually sounds good to me.

I remember a couple of years ago I was on a bit of a Ray Baretto kick, and I commented to a friend that I couldn't hear anything not to like in Latin music. I mean, shit, I kinda dug the music when Q materialized the mariachi band onto the bridge of the Enterprise in Star Trek TNG. At that time I tended to associate "Latin" more with jazz than with rock. Big fuckin' mistake.

And then today, seemingly out of the blue, an email arrives in my spam box from Six Degree Records (home of Brownout) with a header of "Some content for your blog." What the fuck...

Hey Rick,

Love the site. I work for Six Degree Records.

I wanted to let you know that we just released the new full-length album from Brownout, called Aguilas and Cobras on 9/15. We would love to share some content with you.

The band is the offspring and germinating seed of Grammy-nominated Grupo Fantasma, consisting of eight of the same members.They've been getting into hardcore psychedelic Latin funk rock, and this is just that, at it's best. When not performing as Brownout, or Grupo Fantasma, they can be seen as Prince's back-up band.

I didn't know that last bit. Maybe I should start listening to Prince again...

I'm not naive enough to think that my blog was specifically targeted for this email, but it was a weird coincidence that I had been planning a post about Brownout. In fact, I suspect the diligent folks at Six Degree did a scan of Last. Fm (sidebar on the right) and checked out who was listening to Brownout. I also checked out some videos at YouTube. It was a nice touch to personalize things with my name, though.

I would hesitate to call that email "spam." It was exactly what I'd been looking for: links, information, and free stuff to share on my blog. I'm happy to oblige.

Here's the video for Brownout's "Slinky":



That's a cool tune, but doesn't really give you clear idea about the band's overall direction.

You can download a free tune ("Olvidalo") off the new album here (link/download safe and OK--I did it myself).

There's also a DJ mixtape (25 minutes) available for free download here.

That stuff is all great. If you're still not convinced, you can stream the new album in its entirety from Brownout's website [9/25- Bad link now repaired].

This is all great music by a really good band. Seriously, Kyklops recommended.