Villa Diamante

<i>Empacho Digital</i>

BY David DacksPublished Jul 13, 2009

Click Hear readers, prepare to be spoiled. Today, you get 42 tracks for the (lack of) price of one. What's more, there are dozens of familiar names among these tracks: the Clipse, M.I.A., Nelly, Lykke Li, Fergie are just a few. But you've never heard them quite like this.

Mash-ups are nothing new, but when done right, they can still be thrilling. Villa Diamante is the main man of Argentine electro-cumbia outfit Zizek Collective. His triple-CD length download Empacho Digital (aka Digital Stomachache) is a vivid snapshot of what goes down at the ZZK club nights in Buenos Aires.

The first "disc" consists of android cumbia and reggaeton topped off with a variety of rappers and a few singers. Most tracks equal or better the originals, and it's an outstanding primer on the kind of sound the ZZKers are famous for. The second instalment is heavily influenced by dubstep, and features some uncanny vocal tracks enlivening what can sometimes be an austere genre. The mash-up of Skream and Puerto Rican rapper Gallego becomes a crucial reggae/dancehall banger that the original only hinted at. The third part of the download pairs Argentine rock from different eras with foreign vocalists. The un-ironic Level 42-like pop of Abuelos De La Nada somehow forms a perfect setting for Ol' Dirty Bastard's intoxicated flow.

Diamante says "Empacho Digital is nothing more than a consequence of all the music that has ever come out of my speakers."

Click here to download all 42 tracks of Empacho Digital.

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