Panda Bear and Sonic Boom released their wonderful album Reset in 2022 and then a dub version of the album made with On-U Sound’s Adrian Sherwood in 2023. Now they’ve released an EP of Reset songs reimagined with Mexico City’s Mariachi 2000 de Cutberto Pérez. Pete Kember, who is Sonic Boom, says this is “the final chapter in the Reset story.”
“We had the idea to record with a Mexican mariachi party band going back to ‘Tropic of Cancer’ from the Panda Bear Meets the Grim Reaper LP, but it was always just a pipe dream & circumstances never came together,” Kember says. “Then last year, knowing we were shortly to head to Mexico for a show, we asked our Mexican friend & sound tech Oswaldo Terrones if he had contacts with any mariachi in Mexico. He did … and also with a studio specializing in mariachi recording. With that burning a hole in our imaginations we pulled together a six person team of three Mexican and three Spanish friends, here in Portugal and in Mexico City, and painstakingly translated two Reset songs, making sure to be true to the poetry, the Mexican Spanish, the rhymes and of course the rhythmic flow.”
Kember continues: “In November ’23 we recorded them at Topetitud Studio in Coyoacan, Mexico City with additional arranging by Santiago & Patsi Mijare, with the mariachi playing the instruments, us playing the percussion, and all taking turns to sing. Our Spanish didn’t enable us to understand their animated chatting, but we were told afterwards that the mariachi loved the songs and were bemused by their simplicity and the apparent sleight of hand in their construction. It was a great day, and a joy to watch the mariachi enjoying the songs and taking them back home.”
Listen to Reset Mariachi, and watch the very trippy video for “Peligro (Danger),” below.
Reset Mariachi:
1. Peligro (Danger)
2. Viviendo en las sequelas (Livin’ in the After) – Mariachi 2000 de Cutberto Perez Version
3. Viviendo en las sequelas (Livin’ in the After)
4. Peligro (Danger) – Mariachi 2000 de Cutberto Perez Version
5. Peligro (Danger) – Songbook Instrumental
6. Viviendo en las sequelas (Livin’ in the After) – Songbook Instrumental