When Guatemalan son Juan Carlos Barrios retreated to the rural countryside near lake Atitlan (after the break-up of his mega-successful band Bohemia Suburbana) to write some new music, satori struck, and he found his deepest inspiration in the very sights and sounds of his homeland that he had taken for granted.
Old men discussing politics, chicken truck horns, generations-old and dusty salsa and jazz records, and the ubiquitous AM radio (the only frequency available in the rural areas) emerged in a way which transcended the realm of cliché and inspired him to express the poetry of his native land.
He set about gathering field recordings and crucial rhythmic and percussive samples (because dancing is no less important than poetry), which he played over with his guitar, a bassist, and a drummer. The trio created a compelling hybrid audio document of samples and live instrumentation, an esthetic which has been making itself manifest in various parts of the globe for decades, and remains only as fresh and forward-thinking as the inspiration of the musicians using the technology. Recently, this musical weltanschung has been expressed most emphatically by Mexico's Nortec Collective, to whom Radio Zumbido can be considered a long-lost South American cousin.
Juan Carlos went back to Guatemala City, where he found the title for his album amid the onslaught of Americanized megawatt FM stations: Los Ultimos Dias del AM, a poetic last stand against pop culture globalization. The 11 songs on Los Ultimos Dias del AM contribute to a globalization of the timeless variety in which musicians share the mix of their homeland experiences and their own emerging musical vision in an irresistible way with other like-minded global citizens.
Juan Carlos has been playing live dates around the globe with his bassist and drummer, and an armful of AM radios. Their sound is forcing even the hippest concertgoers to drop the pose and get sweaty on the dance floor.
— Courtesy Calabash Music
