Orkesta Mendoza

Monday 24 April 2017 Doors 8pm
Sage Two
St Mary's Square, Gateshead Quays
Gateshead
NE8 2JR
0191 443 4661
www.sagegateshead.com

Orkesta Mendoza’s mix of cumbia, mambo, indie and borderline rumbadelica – all in well-cut suits – comes to the UK. Their brash, widescreen style and witty reference to 60s instrumental pop is both effortlessly classy and enormous fun. Orkesta Mendoza is led by Mexican American kingpin Sergio Mendoza, who is also a member and co-producer of Tucson music legends Calexico, and arranger and founder member of Mexrrissey.

Born in Nogales, Arizona and raised in Nogales, Sonora, Mendoza now lives back in Arizona. But the music he and his band make isn’t Mexican or American. Blending cumbia and mambo with psychedelic rock, polka, country and electronica, Orkesta Mendoza imagines what Nogales would sound like if the border didn’t exist. Focused, fierce and beautifully executed by a superbly drilled set of musicians dressed in their uniform of black suits and sunglasses, the band look like nothing so much as the Blues Brothers playing at a Day of the Dead party.

“A sunny-side-up mix of cumbia, mambo, indie and electronica.” fRoots

“Simmering slabs of cumbia and mambo, tempered with a folkloric, tex-mex psychedelic edge.” Rhythm Passport

“By turns gothic, cinematic, festive and tender … Build a wall, Trump: these Chicanos will come and dance on top of it.” Songlines

“A musically defiant riposte to the virulent separatism of Donald Trump.” The Independent

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