Reset Mariachi EP

Like Taylor Swifts scrambling for independent chart position, Panda Bear and Sonic Boom unleashed a fifth reprise of their excellent 2022 album Reset: Mariachi Reset Next up is the EP Reset to Dub, album/reset-songbook-instrumentals-remixes” class=”external-link” data-event-click=”{"element":"ExternalLink","outgoingURL":"https://pandabearmusic.bandcamp.com/album/reset-songbook-instrumentals-remixes"}” href=”https://pandabearmusic.bandcamp.com/album/reset-songbook-instrumentals-remixes” rel=”nofollow noopener” target=”_blank”>Reset (Songbook Instrumentals + Remixes)and a real, honest to goodness Restore songbookwith scores of the songs. Excessive; Maybe a little. But it's hard to argue with sight. The duo originally wanted to record with a mariachi band on “Tropic of Cancer,” for Panda Bear's 2015 album Panda Bear meets Grim Reaper, co-produced by Sonic Boom. But the idea remained a dream until the duo booked a show in Mexico in 2023, leading to a recording session with Mexico City band Mariachi 2000 de Cutberto Pérez.

Few albums deserve the remake treatment as much Resetan exciting excursion into 1950s pop and kid-friendly tunes that sound at once innocent and suspiciously narcotic, a record that's hard to pin down in its unusual combinations, but also refreshingly simple in its clean melodic lines and two-string loops . That's what simplicity does Reset an unusually malleable record – a Lego set for inventive minds.

The original “Danger” made exciting use of dreamy acoustic guitar, handclaps and an Everly Brothers sample. It shined as a left-field reggae number when it was remixed by Adrian Sherwood as “Danger Dub”. and reverberates in cinematic romance as 'Peligro', thanks to the shimmering strings and floral trumpets of Mariachi 2000 de Cutberto Pérez. The song's transformation is complete when the Mexico City band's singers replace Panda Bear's slightly reedy Spanish-language vocals with their rich, full voices on a second version of the song.

Reset“Livin' in the After” is a more obvious candidate for the Cutberto Pérez treatment, its soaring string line — sampled from the Drifters' 1960 single “Save the Last Dance for Me” — with the elegant drama associated with mariachi music. (Though Mexican musicians were apparently confused by the simplicity of Panda Bear and Sonic Boom's songs, so maybe we shouldn't very much of this apparent similarity). -Songs I have heard for a long time.

After passing through Reset and Restore to Dub, “Livin' in the After” may have found its definitive version as the deeply joyous “Viviendo en las sequelas,” especially when listened to respectfully by the assembled Mariachi singers of 2000. The philosophical listener may take a moment to reflect the powerfully universal language of music that took this song, forged in Portugal by musicians from Baltimore and Rugby, England, to Mexico City. But the best reaction is definitely dancing, smiling and slapping back.