A mixtape can be many things, but one thing is for sure, a mixtape is more than just random songs put in a particular order. It’s about recontextualizing sounds, giving them a new meaning (sometimes very different from the original) by setting them side by side, or juxtaposed in ingenious ways with others. Best thing about mixtapes, most of them are FREE (!), and they’re a great way to discover new music. In this column, Juan Data gives you a worthy one every week.
DJ: El Pony
MIXTAPE: Linda Mixtape Vol. 2
All the way from Salta (a province in the northwestern corner of Argentina, bordering Chile and Bolivia), we found this cool mixtape by up-and-comer Rodrigo Paz, who goes by the name of El Pony. A photographer and sound engineering student by day, Mr. Pony claims he was into cumbia and dub (the two main ingredients of his mix) since forever, though he only got into DJing in recent years. For a while, he spent time in Cordoba where he got to see Zizek‘s luminaries Fauna and Frikstailers back when they were barely starting. But it was El Hijo de la Cumbia the one who inspired him the most, which is quite evident in his sound, all the way from that memorable intro, to the rather abrupt end.
El Pony’s second mixtape (he only shares his first mix online) is made up almost entirely of downloaded tracks from fellow remixers and producers’ SoundCloud music loads. This hour-long bass-heavy trip offers a lot of remixed Mexican cumbia sonidera and plenty of Colombian accordion, but absolutely no references to Argentine cumbia villera.
El pony – Linda Mixtape Vol.2 by El Pony