Dinner Music 133: The weekly lineup
mexican lounge, latin grooves, chicha
An update on the archive: Going forward, each past newsletter will get updated with links to the playlist for that particular week. This way, it’ll be easy for paid subscribers to access past playlists. Over the next few months, I’ll do this for the entire archive. Thanks for supporting this project, y’all!
This week we’re listening to a lot of music from Mexico (the playlist has a broader geography, however). Growing up in Texas, music from Mexico and South American was everywhere, yet I didn’t know how to listen. Now, things are different.
We begin with Pepe Jaramillo, who I featured in the 4th edition of this newsletter three years ago, a Mexican pianist that displayed “utterly unpretentious simplicity” in his playing at the Ritz in Mexico City. La Fiesta Mexicana is an act of permission-giving — to feel a bit more, to hold that melancholy and joy at once. This is an excellent album for summertime sadness. Next, we have Selena, whose grip on Texas has yet to diminish. I feel lucky to have grown up listening to Amor Prohibido. What infectious vibes, even now! An easy way to tell a Texan from a non-Texan is to see how they react to Bidi Bidi Bom Bom. We move into grupera album Falso Amor from Los Bukis, which processes sound from English rock, ranchera, and cumbia to enact a musical-feat at once melancholic and nostalgic, drawing from a rural sense of place, both literally and metaphorically. If it’s already hot where you are, consider putting this on as your winding down your day on the porch or balcony or backyard or stoop. In Los Terricolas Llorarás, we keep the melancholic sound and add a touch of French chanson. I get the sense that Clairo might like this. We end with a “free-form” chicha album from Chicha Libre; a little bit of cumbia, Andean melodies, and psychedelia.
Enjoy.
Paid subscribers have access to the full Dinner Music archive (via Spotify and Apple Music), an after hours playlist, a “New York Grooves” playlist and more — hundreds of hours of groove, jazz, folk, samba, hi-life, disco, funk and more, lovingly selected.
Plus, paid subscribers get a monthly playlist (here's April’s) and albums recs for new music and access to the “for consideration” weekly playlists (2-5 hours of additional music!).