Nortec Collective Presents: Bulevar 2000

Album Review

Bostich + Fussible are members of Nortec Collective, the northern Mexico group whose members blend techno and electronic music generally with the sounds of their home region — accordions and acoustic guitars dance with pumping synth riffs and 4/4 beats. This album is a follow-up to their debut, Tijuana Sound Machine, and it's more of the same, but when what you're offering is this much fun, it hardly matters if change between albums is incremental. Guest vocalist Kylee Swenson adds a cool, international (in the sense of being accentless and geographically/culturally unidentifiable) feel to "I Count the Ways," floating atop disco strings and horns. There are strong elements of '80s electro and '90s digital dub in their sound, too, creating an irresistibly danceable mix that makes synths a viable substitute for the tubas of Mexican banda. Some of the guest vocalists drag the energy level down a bit (particularly on the title track), but the hilariously mispronounced Spanish on "One Night" and cut-up/distorted voices on "Must Love" make up for it. These two are inventive, witty, and skilled at getting a party going and keeping it going. Too much electronic music from Latin artists gives in to a digital anonymity; it could be from anywhere. Nortec Collective as a whole, and Bostich + Fussible in particular, never lose their Mexican-American identity, and their work is all the better for it.