As you probably have already understood, we genuinely love Orkesta Mendoza sound…
So we made our way upstream and tried to understand where their artistic inspiration comes from. We asked Sergio Mendoza (the banda leader) to reveal to us some of his music influences and most-beloved tunes and the following playlist represents, “in a way or another”, where the Orkesta vibes comes from.
Sergio also explained his selection to us:
“This group of songs is a mixture of many different styles of music from different regions some new and some from the 40’s like Perez Prado.
It also includes friends who I have worked with through my own band (Orkesta Mendoza) and Calexico. It’s a lot of the projects I’m involved in such as Denver’s Devotchka. Who I also toured with. They are currently working on a new album and I got to track on one of the songs!
Calexico, I have been working with for almost 10 years and they are also working on new music. Cumbia de Donde is a track from their last album and one I worked on very closely with Joey Burns and John Convertino.
Gaby Moreno is an amazing singer from Guatemala who I met in Mexico and haven’t gotten to work with her through touring with Calexico.
I would love to do something with her. Maybe some Duke Ellington songs in Spanish.
Juan Cirerol is a young singer from Mexico. He sings kind of like the old corrido singers, but he sings about current things and also has like a punk egde to what he does. We got to work with him at Celtic Connetions in January this year and it was a lot of fun getting to hang out with him.
Camilo Lara from the Mexican Institute of Sound is another great friend and one who I have been doing a lot of work with. We plan to do an Orkesta Mendoza and M.I.S. album together and tour on it sometime in the next two years. We also did Mexrrissey together.
Then, there are good friends from Tucson, like Golden Boots and Jess Matsen. I have also included Los Hijos de La Montaña, which is one of my side projects with singer-songwriter Luz Elena Mendoza from Portland. Together we did a folky Mexican album produced by Los Lobos Steve Berlin. She’s also the bandleader of an ensemble called Y La Bamba.
The rest of is composed by tracks of bands I like and in one way or another inspires what we do“.
(Sergio Mendoza)
Vamos a guarachar and don’t miss Orkesta Mendoza UK tour starting tonight in London (Rich Mix)!