Best of 2017 #35: La Pingo’s Orquesta – “Peregrino” (Ropeadope Sur)

The motion of the music is tango and tropanka, waltz and twist, foot taps and head bops and long slow dances with someone held close.  It’s music from Argentina and Mexico and the Balkans and NYC to the north and Tuscon to the south.  This music is the salt of the earth and the story of the roots.  It’s a joyful form of folk music, and Peregrino serves it up like a stiff drink of euphoria.  La Pingo’s Orquesta folds all of those influences along lines of motion until it resembles the shape of their sound.  That this music can be so varied and yet so coherent and distinct is pretty amazing in its own right.  But that the intelligence of its construction is made secondary to an abounding sense of fun is why this is a must-have recording, and why it’s one of the best things to hit the shelves in 2017.

Music from Aguascalientes, Mexico.

Read more at Bird is the Worm.