Malambo is a folkloric music genre and dance style characteristic of the gauchos in the Argentine Pampas and originated in the 1600’s, heavily influenced by its African roots (like many African dances developed in Latin America, it’s a competitive dance where men battle other men with complex, almost acrobatic, footwork moves over syncopated drum beats). Not to be confused with the municipality of the same name in Northern Colombia, where the historic roots of cumbia can be traced back to.
Nevertheless, that is a curious coincidence, because this song, “Malambo,” is very much inspired in the rhythms of the Argentine traditional genre, by a group, Tremor, who gained international recognition mainly because of their association to Zizek, a collective of artist based in Buenos Aires, as we all know by now, who pretty much unleashed the current global cumbia craze.
The song belongs to the latest release by the Zizek collective, a compilation titled Future Sounds of Buenos Aires, recently released by ZZK Records in association with the LA-based Waxploitation label. The visually stimulating video, done by Elliot Sellers employing mixed techniques of animation, does not evoke in any way the dance or culture surrounding Argentine malambo, or its dance duels for that matter. It’s obvious that the guy, from a totally neutral point of view, focused exclusively on the music and its rhythm and pretty much created this abstract dreamy sequence based on that, resulting in the most avant-guard and visually elaborated video for a ZZK artist so far, (but also, in comparison, the less ridiculously funny of them).
[insert-video youtube=GKRtqzQx9Ag]