By the Zonagirante.com team @spinning zone
Cover art by Zonagirante Studio
Migration, you damn racists, improves the ambient sound
One of the greatest riches of a contemporary nation is its multiculturalism. It's about walking its streets and encountering people of different backgrounds, speaking diverse languages, with multiple accents, wearing boldly styled clothes, and from disparate origins, all mingling together 24 hours a day. And the best part: all of that is reflected in the sound, in the music, in the encounter between the instruments and voices of this melting pot of cultures that blends distant histories with what happens every hour on the street.
That phenomenon is supposed to be—the famous melting pot— This should make the United States proud, a country that boasts of its modernity but where many of its more extreme and bland inhabitants reject the visual chimerism that surrounds them. They prefer to seek out imaginary criminals among the crowds that arrive from all over the world, simply because they don't look or sound as basic or boring as they do.
In musical matters, cultural mixing produces incredible sound laboratories. Unexpected resonances that blend genres some considered irreconcilable end up impacting even the most skeptical. From this phenomenon emerge projects that skillfully combine past, present, and future. In this case, we'll talk about two new album releases with undeniably Latin DNA, But, having originated in San Diego and New York, they have become resounding forceful forces that shatter prejudices and preconceived notions on both sides of the border. Here are two plaques that, in their own way, represent the new sound of our Gringolandia by the end of 2025.
Tulengua — Trash
This is hip hop, yes, that's the first thing that hits your ear. But if you listen more closely, there's much more: norteño music, funk, jazz, telenovela soundtracks, coastal-flavored ballads, echoes of old orchestras, sunsets by the sea from any era and throughout the last hundred years. It's the binational border in action: the transit between Tijuana and Southern California, a bilingual, disparate, noisy, and yet delicate road.
It can sound at times like a romantic neighborhood tune (Pretty), then aggressive and streetwise (Trash), or as contemporary nostalgia (I like the sun).
Tulengua breaks down borders with style. The idea isn't to dwell on the nostalgia of their parents or to accept without question what the North American urban sound offers. Everything that reaches the ear of Alan Lili, Amari Jordan and Jaime Mora It serves to create unexpected, new, fresh music. Trash It is a reflective, current, at times moving album, never weak, always attentive to the argumentative solidity and the emotion of the listener. An album full of surprises.
Industrial Plant — Punk Wave Without Barriers Vol. 1: Getting to Know Each Other
4,500 km away, via highway, we find two Dominicans who know how to mix anger, flavor, and fun. If we're being bold, we could say that Planta Industrial sounds like the Beastie Boys' kids soaked up Caribbean culture, Without ever abandoning their inherited punk spirit, they decided to scandalize New York with songs that mix merengue, post-punk, dark wave, electronica, pop and Spanglish rap.
And when you make a mix like this, you have to accept it with good humor and without exaggerated respect for good manners. Here's the thing. full permission So that, in the midst of the most frenzied mosh pit, the spirit of El General returns and takes over the dance floor with his signature sway. Beware: don't expect gentle groping. Prepare for the shove of the crowd or let yourself be swept away by the flow of music that pounds the speakers and shakes heads with more grace than any outdated punk band of the past.
Miscegenation again? Yes, at its highest decibels, like in the hit song Teteo in The Bronx, Violent, relentless funk, with a seventies-style bassline ready to shake the walls of any self-respecting party. An idea, while we're at it: if you're bored at your parents' Christmas parties, Break the family stereo with this cut, ...among the usual old tropical tunes. Then they'll tell us what happens.
And here's a strange ending: it sounds When Will You Return?. Imagine Peter Murphy singing a bolero wrapped in synthwave sounds. That's called dare.
In the end: one of the best publications of 2025. It's likely that Planta Industrial will be mentioned thousands of times by the audience in the coming years. They have a bright future ahead of them.
Short final statement
My North American friends (and friends from other parts of the world): let go of your prejudices, your mental nonsense, and simply enjoy this hodgepodge of instruments and voices brought to you by independent and self-managed Latin America. Don't waste your time with what the regular channels offer., that cliché they've turned us into.
Everything is more interesting on the side underground.
