The term tropicanibalismo has been circulating within experimental music scenes in Colombia since at least the early 2000s, broadly encompassing new and innovative approaches to coastal popular and folkloric music forms. Cumbión Planetario is Bogotá-based duo Rizomagic’s newest contribution to this tropicanibalismo landscape. Rooted in cumbia (with a particular nod to languid, Monterrey-born cumbia rebajada), perhaps the most emblematic Colombian music and dance genre, the slow-motion music of Cumbión Planetario is distinctly contemporary.
Hints of dub, a deeper camaraderie with music that might be termed IDM, and particular investments in the idea of cosmic tuning serve as important contours. Group members Diego Manrique and Edgar Marún have their own term for it: psychotropicolombian futurism. As genres go, it’s a mouthful. Still, it’s also accurate in signaling the elements of psychedelia, tropicanibalismo, Colombian folklore, and atmospheric electronica that swirl together in the zero-gravity sounds of Cumbión Planetario.
It’s gorgeous work. Hefty basslines and glitchy beats resonate amid spaced-out synths and nature-derived ambience. Samples of soundscapes from La Becque, the Swiss residency where Rizomagic recorded the album, feature throughout. These elements intertwine with each other and the unmistakable cumbia rhythms, scaling up into cosmic dance after cosmic dance. This is massive music. Rizomagic are attuned to a future that follows from the specific forces that have shaped their music across time and space, from the advent of cumbia to its potentially infinite futures.
Most overtly connected to traditional cumbia is the opening track “Plutarco”, which features experimental Bogotano accordionist Iván Medellin of Conjunto Media Luna. The quivering lilt of his instrument grounds this track in cumbia history but stays loose, flowing through the space Manrique and Marún craft note by note. More electronics-forward, “Las Esferas” starts slow and low, making the occasional burst of birdsong or flash of high-up synth all the more exciting. The gleeful vintage percussion and keyboard sounds of “Pajarocaña” hypnotize, and the ominous pulses of “Kir” thrill. The blips that travel through “Colisionadub” suggest satellite transmissions that the duo juxtaposes over laid-back, beachy melodies.
The album’s second half feels even more extraordinary. It opens with “Bubun”, an alluringly minimal track on which an owl’s call keeps the beat. Following this, “Cumbia de la entropía” is, as the title promises, a piece that grows increasingly chaotic through beats that blur the lines between industrial and organic, sometimes sounding as much like a mechanically amplified heartbeat as a piece of heavy factory equipment. Lengthy cuts “El Sombras” and “Cumbia Mineral” explore cumbia in fractal-like detail, zooming in closer and closer to give each piece dedicated attention. Final track “Rayo” generates a particularly inexorable pull with the help of a tremendous low end.
With Cumbión Planetario, Rizomagic open up new intergalactic horizons for contemporary cumbia. The world here is open and wild, psychedelic in scope, tropical in spirit. To listen is to be entranced and transported, swept into a cumbia prism that seems endless. This is easily some of the most inspired work to emerge from the tropicanibalismo movement in recent years.