Lamento Selvatico from Lamento Selvatico by Los Wembler's de Iquitos

🆘‼️100% OF PROFITS PLEDGED TO SOS IQUITOS AMAZONÍA RELIEF FUND, PLEASE READ DETAILS BELOW‼️🆘

https://www.gofundme.com/f/sos-iquitos-amazonia-relief-fund/donate

Names You Can Trust is proud to present a special collaboration with Barbès Records and the legendary godfathers of cumbia amazónica, Los Wembler’s de Iquitos. Featuring two songs mixed expressly for 7-inch directly from the reels of their 2019 album, Visión Del Ayahuasca, it’s the latest entry in the group’s historic canon of a particular brand of bonafide psychedelia, a worthy addition to a catalog of recordings that have made their way around the world to fans, DJs and sound systems since the group’s beginnings in the late ‘60s.

The band’s 50 year-old origin story begins when electric instruments started showing up at the port city of Iquitos, Peru. This seminal moment of international trade at the gateway to the Amazon inspired a shoemaker named Solomon Sanchez to start a band with his five sons. Los Wembler’s were the first band in the capital of the Peruvian Amazon to play popular local rhythms with electric guitars. Their revolutionary sound, fuzzy lysergic guitar helixes wrapped around melancholic melodies, would go on to have an enormous impact on the whole of South American popular music, echoing throughout the continent and further, into the States and eventually across the world.

The past few years have seen a new wave of interest in the band’s music. Los Wembler’s, the sons, now fathers and grandfathers themselves, have brought their trademark sound on recent tours to Mexico, Europe and North America, where it has been embraced by a new generation of musicians and listeners.

As Los Wembler’s prepared for a lengthy tour in 2020 to coincide with this new 7-inch issue, the world abruptly changed course. The COVID-19 outbreak has had particularly devastating consequences in the Peruvian Amazon. With an urban density of around a million people, Iquitos is the largest isolated city in the world, reachable only by boat or plane and surrounded by the vastness of the rainforest. A buzzing multicultural city, Iquitos was catapulted into modernity during the late 19th century’s rubber fever. It is home to not only the members of Los Wembler’s, but several legendary and influential musicians who helped lay the groundwork for the roots of chicha, the distinctively Peruvian brand of cumbia.

Beginning in April 2020, the coronavirus began to relentlessly spread throughout the region of Loreto, a region already plagued by lack of basic healthcare, corrupt authorities and a recent outburst of dengue fever. It continues to place enormous pressure on its metropolitan capital, Iquitos, as well as its surrounding areas. Within the month, and only a few days apart, two brothers from the original Los Wembler’s lineup, Jairo and Emerson Sanchez, succommed in the midst of the crisis. A few days earlier, another legendary musician, educator and local politician, Raul Llerena, known artistically as Ranil, met a similar fate. While the news of their passing shook the tropical music scene worldwide, theirs are unfortunately only a few among many personal stories currently repeating on a daily basis throughout the Peruvian Amazon.

In light of this, Names You Can Trust and Barbès Records have teamed up with the newly formed Amazonía Support Group, joining forces with Germany’s Analog Africa and Lima’s Dengue Dengue Dengue amongst others, to help alleviate this problem on the ground in Iquitos. With the sad timing of brand new releases from Los Wembler’s on NYCT and Ranil y su Conjunto Tropical on Analog Africa, this effort also serves as an honorary gesture in the memory of Jairo and Emerson Sanchez, as well as Raul Llerena.

Names You Can Trust has pledged to donate 100% of profits raised from the sale of the new Los Wembler’s de Iquitos “Lamento Selvatico” 7-inch vinyl and digital downloads between now and June 5 directly to the Amazonía Relief Fund and their sole recipient in Iquitos.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/sos-iquitos-amazonia-relief-fund/donate

WHO AMAZONÍA RELIEF FUND DONATES TO:

“The Vicariate San Martin is a small catholic organisation led by father and medical doctor Raymond Portelli and father Miguel Fuertes. These two figures, highly involved with and respected by the community of Iquitos, including the family of Ranil, have launched a crusade to provide sanitary and medical aid, and have already acquired an oxygen plant after an initial donation. But there is much more to be done, as we were told by Father Portelli by phone. The city of Iquitos needs at least another oxygen plant as well as immediate supply of oxygen flasks (valued at $800 USD a piece at the moment) and life-saving medications such as azithromycin, chloroquine, ivermectin,, corticoids, paracetamol and inhalators.”

nyctrust.com