Ernie's El Dorado Part 9 - Ecuador

Public Service Announcement: If any of you are thinking of entering the exciting competition to come up with the best sporting pun in a song title but have not yet done so, the deadline is tomorrow. Details of what to do and how to do it can be found here.

We now return to our scheduled broadcast. 

Its stop #9 on our tour of the Americas and the start of what might be a tricky stretch. No disrespect intended to the many fine musicians in the E-H countries of Latin America but I have struggled to accumulate the same quantity of music that I did on previous tours and earlier and later stops on this one. That said, there are still lots of goodies as this visit to Ecuador will hopefully demonstrate.   

Ecuador is one of those countries that I know less about than I probably should - the Galapagos, the Andes, Quito, Cuenca, the fact that Panama stole the credit for the straw hat that originated in Ecuador, and that is about it. But after reading about it for this post I have added it to my list of places to try to visit. It sounds interesting and varied, to use the travel guide cliche.

Interesting and varied can also be used to describe the music of Polibio Mayorga who with his trusty moog bestrode the local music scene like a colossus back in the 1960s and 1970s. As Wikipedia notes: "at one point Mayorga was so dominant in the Ecuadorian music charts that he started releasing music under pseudonyms, to give the illusion of variety".

Today's track is attributed to one such pseudonym, Ángel Y Su Banda, and comes from 'their' only album, "Te Invito A Mi Casa". That album isn't on Bandcamp but lots of his records are. The Analog Africa compilation "Ecuatoriana - El Universo Paralelo de Polibio Mayorga" would be a good place to start.

Another compilation you might want to check out is "Juyungo" which puts the spotlight on the Afro-Indigenous culture of the province of Esmeraldas. I was going to make a clever remark contrasting the beauty of Esmeraldas with the Quasimodo that is Quito, but it would be neither fair nor funny so I won't. Instead I'll just direct you to Papá Roncón.

If those two compilations whet your appetite then why not head over to Musicoteca Ecuador's page and admire their back catalogue. There are one minute extracts from 7" singles there which cost US $45 to post to the UK - I declined - but there some albums available for download as well. One such is "El Diablo Ocioso" by Diabluma's Brass Band. I kept it simple and went with the title track.

Bandcamp won't help you with Boddega, an ever so slightly psychedelic ensemble that came ambling out of Guayaquil in 1971 and hung around until the end of the decade. The selected track comes from an EP they released in 1974. I have no idea how it got to me from there. 

Also mildly psychedelic but much more modern is the track by H.O. & Los Bicivoladores, who was extremely prodigious between 2012 and 2020 - putting out nearly 40 releases in eight years - before seemingly finding something better to do with his time. This is a cover version of a song by Chilean folk singer Pedro Messone and you can find it on his self-explanatory album "Covers".

Next up we have Maria Usbeck, a singer-songwriter who is originally from Quito but is now living in Brooklyn. She started her career as the lead singer of the goth-lite Selebrities before going solo in 2014. This track is from her debut album "Amparo", her latest came out in April.

We're mixing old and new next with Paramo Cumbie who in 2019 gave us their dubbed up take on popular local music styles like bomba on the their EP "Magic Runa", and who can lead us seamlessly into this episode's MAR selection. That comes from Yuhuarsonicos and its taken from their 2011 album "Real". 

"El Comité" - Ángel Y Su Banda (Polibio Mayorga)

"Sanjuanito Chachi" - Papá Roncón

"El Diablo Ocioso" - Diabluma's Brass Band

"Muñequita de Porcelana" - Boddega

"Solitario" - H.O. & Los Bicivoladores

"Moai Y Yo" - Maria Usbeck

"Dub Healing Bomba" - Paramo Cumbie

"Amor Verdadero" - Yuhuarsonicos

Now on to the videos. In case Rol or any of his cancel culture crusaders read this I would like to make it clear that the first video is included despite not because of all the ladies wearing T-shirts with 'Sexy' written on the front. I felt that the presence of a hooded shirtless executioner in the TV studio justified its inclusion in the public interest.