Your Mix Fix: Cal Jader

The word mixtape has plenty of different interpretations. It used to be that mixtapes were actually DJ sets recorded on cassette tapes, but with the coming of the digital music age, the name remained the same, but the definition expanded. Nowadays, people call mixtapes many different things, some of which are not necessarily mixed and most of which were never taped. Here we try to cover them all. In this column, Juan Data gives you a worthy one every week.

DJ: Cal Jader

MIXTAPE: La Serpiente Negra

The Chicha Fever keeps spreading and reaching new coasts. This time, all the way from London, England, we have a local band that pays tribute to the psychedelic Peruvian ’60s sound much in the same way New Yorkers Chicha Libre do.

Los Chinches is the name of the band, comprised of Peruvian immigrants and British musicians with a background in punk rock. They’ll soon be releasing their debut album on the London-based Movimientos record label, that as the name accurately suggests, focuses primarily on Latin music.

La Serpiente Negra mixtape was put together by the label’s own DJ Cal Jader and it includes many of the tracks from the band’s forthcoming debut plus a handfull of remixes (including one by Toy Selectah!). There’re also some cumbia and chicha all-time classics entangled in the mix, in reedited versions done by Papa Chango.

The mixtape’s primary purpose is, of course, to introduce Los Chinches to the world-wide audience so it doesn’t really matter if not all the transitions work from the DJ point of view. Unfortunately there’s no download link for the mixtape, it’s stream-only, but to make up for that, there’s a free promotional download (also below) of one of Los Chinches’ songs, the one that gave its name to the tape.

Los Chinches – La Serpiente Negra mixtape by Movimientos Records