Orkesta Mendoza

Wednesday 26 April 2017 Doors 7.30pm
Cambridge Corn Exchange
Wheeler Street
CB2 3QE
01223 357851
www.cornex.co.uk

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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