Nortec Collective Downloads

Nortec Collective is not a thing or a genre or a group or a band, but an entire electronic aesthetic. It is a convergence of high-tech and low-tech, of North and South, of all things techno with all things norteño, of all the things that are a part of the rural and urban. The sound of the... Learn More »

Nortec Collective is not a thing or a genre or a group or a band, but an entire electronic aesthetic. It is a convergence of high-tech and low-tech, of North and South, of all things techno with all things norteño, of all the things that are a part of the rural and urban. The sound of the Nortec Collective is the sound of the First World in the Third and the Third World in the First.

The Nortec Collective is comprised by five artists: Fussible (Pepe Mogt), Bostich (Ramón Amezcua), Panóptica (Roberto Mendoza), Clorofila (Jorge Verdín) and Hiperboreal (PG Beas). These musicians created and perform a style of music called Nortec - a fusion of Norteño ("from the North") and Techno, documenting the collision between the style and culture of electronica and traditional Mexican music. The new album features the hypnotic first single “Tijuana Makes Me Happy,” as well as the infectious “Tengo La Voz.”

Nortec Collective sees Tijuana not only as their home, but as a border metropolis of almost two million people, a major hub of global pop culture on par with Tokyo, New York, LA, and London. It is America’s most important switching point, where cultures, cash, languages, styles, laborers, and sounds (lots and lots of sounds) all migrate into each other without the proper documents, clashing and connecting and merging and marrying, like few other spots on the planet. Their Tijuana is Macintosh G5s and bad sewage, digital file swapping, Moby concerts and vaqueros blasting Los Tucanes de Tijuana from their pickup trucks.

Ten things to do before listening to the Nortec Collective's The Tijuana Sessions:

1. Forget what you know about Tijuana. Forget cheap prostitutes, marines on shore leave, unpaved roads, semi-automatic spraying narco bosses, donkey shows. Forget danger, fear, worry. Forget Perry Como singing "South of the Border." Forget CNN. Forget "Tiawanna." Forget TJ.

2. Know that there is a different Tijuana and know that the nortec collective from Tijuana and Ensenada are musicians, graphic designers, architects, filmmakers, visual artists, and fashion stylists. Their Tijuana is a border metropolis of almost two million people, a major hub of global pop culture on par with Tokyo, New York, LA, and London. It is the Americas' most important switching point, where cultures, cash, languages, styles, laborers, and sounds (lots and lots of sounds) all migrate into each other without the proper documents, clashing and connecting and merging and marrying, like few other spots on the planet. Their Tijuana is Macintosh G3s and bad sewage, digital file swapping, Moby concerts and vaqueros blasting Los Tucanes de Tijuana from their pick-ups. As the voice says on Hiperboreal's "Tijuana for Dummies": "This is Tijuana...."

3. Know that The Tijuana Sessions Vol. 1 is their first musical manifesto released to U.S. ears.

4. Know that the Nortec Collective is not a thing or a genre or a group or a band, but an entire electronic aesthetic. Nortec stands for norteño-techno, the convergence of high-tech and low-tech, of North and South, of all things techno-- the sequenced breakbeats and sound patterns, the raves, the recombinant technology, sample cut-ups - with all things norteño, all the things that are a part of the rural and urban, cowboy hat and tasseled-sleeve world of Northwestern Mexico. But especially the music, the norteño, ranchera, and banda sinaloense, three of Mexico's most traditional, most important, and most commercially popular musical styles (all Mexicanized hybrids of polka and waltz music brought to Mexico by German farmers), best known for their button accordions, acoustic bass, brassy trumpets and trombones, big honking tubas, big bass drum booms, and firecracker snare rolls that were doing BPM speed rushes before drum n' bass knew how to lace its running shoes. The sound of The Tijuana Sessions Vol. 1 is the sound of the First World in the Third and the Third World in the First.

5. Know that The Tijuana Sessions Vol. 1 features the seven musical members of the Nortec Collective: Fussible (Pepe Mogt and Melo Ruiz), Bostich (Ramon Amezcua), Terrestre (Fernando Corona), Plankton Man (Ignacio Chavez), Panoptica (Roberto Mendoza), Clorofila (Jorge Verdun and Fritz Torres) and Hiperboreal (Pedro Gabriel Beas and Claudia Algara).

6. Know that there's been a strong electronic music scene in Baja California for the past fifteen years, with crews like Avant Garde, Artefakto, Vandana, Ford Procco, 3dtv, tlahuilia, DJ Tolo, Tlahuilia and THC -- Tijuana House Club (not to mention future key Nor-Tec players Fussible and Bostich), labels like Mil and Nimboestatic, and art magazines like Cha3 (edited by Clorofila's Torres). Know that it was fueled in part by Tijuana's status as a border capital for maquiladora factories that manufacture electronic gear and Tijuana's proximity to San Diego - Baja electro kids could hear Future Sound of London on San Diego's 91X and they could drive across the border to crate dig for 12-inch imports and raid swap meets for used equipment.

7. Also know that the nortec contingent are not the only ones out there (dig deeper for Zoo Sonico, Aquadelfin, Nona Deliches, Irradia) but they are the only ones to directly throw Mexico into the techno mix, re-working the German and British techno they've all come up on -- Tangerine Dream, Yello, Cabaret Voltaire, Aphex Twin, and Kraftwerk -- with the vernacular Mexican music their parents played in the living room.

8. Know that the Nortec Collective was officially born in 1999, when Fussible's Pepe Mogt started doing sample experiments on old banda sinaloense and norteño records and then tweaking the sounds on his hard-drive and synthesizer. The same tech-Mex cut and paste is at work on The Tijuana Sessions Vol. 1, which also includes recordings culled from norteño street musicians who play in the red-light district bars of downtown Tijuana. Mogt explains it this way: "The rawer the sounds we got from these musicians, the better sounding they were to us. We forged them through filters and vocoders to create something that did not sound anything like its original form." That something reflects the infinite variety of Mextronica: dub, jungle, house, jazz, and downtempo.

9. Know that since 1999, the Nortec Collective musicians have packed rave parties throughout Mexico, Japan, and Germany, transformed LA rock clubs, and ruled the stage of New York's Irving Plaza at the first annual Latin Alternative Music Conference (held last in August 2000). Former Mexican president, Ernest Zedillo, with the museum of Papalote invited them to provide music for the Mexican pavilion at the recent Expo 2000 in Hanover, and they've done remixes for Beck, La Dosis, Titan, and Julieta Venegas among others.

10. Know that Nortec is the border and the border is our future.
« Hide Description