Nortec Collective

Though Tijuana Sound Machine is credited to the Nortec Collective as a whole, this time out only collective leader Pepe Mogt and majordomo Ramon Amezcua are on hand. This makes Tijuana Sound Machine considerably more focused and direct than the group's eclectic earlier releases. Mogt's fundamental concept for the Nortec Collective -- mixing the accordion, trumpets, guitarron and other key instruments of norteño, the native pop music of northern Mexico, with electronic beats and processing -- finds its purest form on Tijuana Sound Machine: these 15 brief tracks, only four of which feature vocals, are (with only rare exceptions, most notably "Brown Bike," which is basically a Beck-style pop song with sampled norteño trumpets and stage-whispered English-language lyrics) pure norteño, played on live acoustic instruments and only barely tweaked by the synths and samplers that predominated on the Nortec Collective's last album, The Tijuana Sessions, Vol. 3. The results might sound a bit cheesy to those not familiar with the glories of norteño -- with its polka beats and prominent accordions, many hipsters automatically (and incorrectly) mentally categorize it as a south of the border Lawrence Welk, yet the pure fun of songs like the jumpy "Mama Loves Nortec" and the hypnotic, dubby "Rosarito" is hard to resist. ~ Stewart Mason, All Music Guide