Sonidero City - Soundsystems and cumbia music in Mexico and Colombia

224 pages
Offset print
200 x 265 mm
Softcover

The visual investigation Sonidero City is an homage to the Cumbia DJs/Sonideros of Mexico City, who from the 60s to today have stood behind their sound systems' mics, sending cumbia music as well as greetings across the streets. While some stack loudspeakers into massive towers, others stick to a modest set-up, spinning their own LP collections on 70s-era record players.
In contrast, on Colombia's Caribbean coast, giant flourescent- painted speakers called Picós spill afro-colombian Champeta music through local communities.
In Northern Mexico, in Monterrey, a scene of young people has emerged a couple of years ago; they are going to concerts of cumbia and vallenato music and invented their own style of clothing and the "dance of the sparrow hawk".
The book Sonidero City is a visual collection tracing the paths of the Mexican and Colombian sound systems as well as the journey cumbia music took, the predominant sound of the Sonideros.

Published by Mirjam Wirz & Buzz Maeschi, 2013
Designed by Pascal Alexander & Fabian Stacoff