THE ANIMEROS Release Cumbia Psicodélica Debut LP ¡QUÉ BÁRBARO! via Easy Eye Sound
The Austin band will play The Continental Club and add tour dates including Chicago's Hideout.
Austin, TX-based band The Animeros—Mauro Lopez (guitarist), Nicolas Sánchez (bassist), and Nick Tozzo (drummer/percussionist)—today released their Dan Auerbach-produced debut LP, ¡Qué Bárbaro!, via Easy Eye Sound. With early praise and support from NPR Music's Alt.Latino, Brooklyn Vegan, KEXP, KCRW, KUTX, The Austin Chronicle, Remezcla, and Far Out Magazine, among others, the album's red-hot original title-track is also out now.
''Que Barbaro' is a Latin-soul tune with a little Tex-Mex seasoning. It has this undeniable sense of swagger that makes you want to straighten your collar and strut through town like you own the place,' says the band of the new instrumental fit for dance party playlists.
The Animeros will celebrate playing a hometown album release show at the Continental Club (8/28) before embarking on a fall headlining West Coast tour in early October. The band also announced several new headlining shows across the Midwest this week, including Chicago's Hideout on November 11th; a full itinerary is listed below and tickets are on-sale here.
By the time Lopez, Sánchez, and Tozzo joined forces as The Animeros, each had over a decade of experience cutting their teeth in Austin's diverse Latin music scene. All had played across the spectrum, but shared a deep affinity for cumbia. Soon after forming, the trio caught the ear of The Black Keys' Dan Auerbach, who heard their music drifting down from a rooftop during a SXSW gig. It was only their second performance, and it took Auerbach a while to track them down. One thing quickly led to another, and Auerbach signed The Animeros to his label Easy Eye Sound after inviting them up to Nashville to produce ¡Qué Bárbaro!. They cut everything live in the room, giving the LP a sense of raw immediacy, but also precision.
'They had rented a mountain of percussion for me,' Tozzo says. 'I got to pick all my instruments like I was putting together a racecar.'
In addition to Tozzo's hybrid set of drumkit and timbales, he also recorded all the hand percussion on the album, including congas, bongos, guacharaca, and the güiro. Meanwhile, Lopez and Sánchez raided the Easy Eye Sound studio's vast store of vintage guitars.
The songs they recorded are bursting with color, often written with a visual quality—the band just as often thinking about a Quentin Tarantino fight sequence, a Spaghetti Western showdown, or a long ambling journey across the deserts of America, as they are the scenes from which these sounds traditionally emerge. Album singles include 'La Camita,' the trio's take on Traffic Sound's 1971 cut, 'Descarga Royal,' 'Mamba Mambo,' 'Gózalo' (which pays homage to the South Texas Latin soul legend Esteban Jordan), 'Danza de Los Saguaros,' and 'Ponchote de Ritmo,' inspired by South American cumbia psicodélica and chicha sounds of the '60s and '70s. For The Animeros—whose name is inspired by Colombian shamans who would usher lost souls to their peace—it's about using the music in their DNA and thinking about how they can make people move, while saying something new with it.
The Animeros Headlining Tour Dates
08/28 - Austin, TX - Continental Club (Album Release Show)
9/30 - Santa Fe, NM - Tumbleroot
10/01 - Phoenix, AZ - Linger Longer Lounge
10/02 - Yucca Valley, CA - Dune Room
10/03 - Los Angeles, CA - Zebulon (KCRW Presents)
10/06 - Santa Cruz, CA - Moe's Alley
10/07 - San Francisco, CA - Brick & Mortar
10/09 - Portland, OR - Bunk Bar
10/10 - Trout Lake, WA - Trout Lake Hall
10/11 - Seattle, WA - Hidden Hall
11/03 - Oklahoma City, OK - Resonant Head
11/04 - Kansas City, KS - Bottleneck
11/07 - Minneapolis, MN - 7th St Entry
11/09 - Milwaukee, WI - Cactus
11/11 - Chicago, IL - Hideout
Photo Credit: Tim Hardiman
Photo Credit: Tim Hardiman
