Los Amigos Invisibles

These unruly, but endearing residents of Caracas have taken the rock en Espagnol gambit and translated it into global groove and DJ culture within the context of live playing. A polyglot dance band to beat all and open to all beats, Los Amigos Invisibles keeps their zanier tendencies in check; at least enough that the tomfoolery never gets in the way of serious groove-mongering, but any band that blithely and recklessly leaps from one dance style to another the way Los Amigos do has to have a sense of humour. The quality of those grooves shows just how sophisticated that sense of humour is. A Parisian brand of disco-fied house that could come right off a Dmitri From Paris remix does the bump with funked-up rock and luscious old school funk, which in turn just might get down with a lounge-cum-Nuyorican soul dose of slinkiness. While we still love cerebral, even pointy-headed electronic music whose algorithms are stronger than its rhythms, there's an appealing hedonism and sense of fun at the heart of Arepa 3000 that recalls the best of disco. Far from shallow and brainless, it's embracing and discriminates against no beats and no one.