Re

Getting back to my year-long look at Mexican culture, I turn to the 1994 album by Cafe Tecuba, called Re. When I first heard of the album, it was described as the Mexican Sergeant Pepper, and while it isn't Beatlesque in the way the Beatles used orchestral music, it is in the sense that the 20 songs on the record are incredibly diverse, though all with a Mexican flavor.

Since the liner notes and lyrics are all in Spanish, I can't tell a lot about the band or what they are singing about, but with music it doesn't really matter. I have been listening to this record all week and each time it is pure joy, as every song has something to offer. But the the range of the band is impressive. Consider a stretch of tracks early on. "La ingrata" sounds like traditional Mexican music, what you might get serenaded with at a Mexican restaurant. Then comes "El cicion," which has a funk groove, followed by "El borrego," which wouldn't be out of place on Headbanger's Ball. This, in turn, is followed by the lovely acoustic number"Esa noche," and then comes "24 horas," which has an ELO-like pop sound.

There is a little bit of everything on this album, and uses traditional (and unconditional) Latin instruments such as the jarana, guitarron, and melodeon. The vocals are by Rubén Isaac Albarrán Ortega, who has the high-pitched nasal sound common to Mexican speakers, but he has at home screaming heavy metal lyrics as he is too softly intoning a simple song like "El balcon." 

I think my favorite song on the record is "Tropica de cancer," a title which is easily translated enough. I took the lyric and put it through Google translate, and instead of a wistful love song, it appears to be about the oil drilling industry in Mexico. These guys must be kind of deep. A great record.