The commercial center of Northern Mexico, Monterrey is a factory of quirky, fun music. In our interview with him DJ Sheeqo Beat called the city, “Nashville for regional Mexican music.” It's home to many legendary major labels, but scrappy indie labels like Happy-Fi Collective and NeNe Records put out records at an astonishing rate too, and in astonishing variety, making the city a haven for less mainstream artists. Groups like Plastilina Mosh, Kinky, and rappers Control Machete laid the groundwork for an alternative scene in the 1990s. Today, DIY venues like El Garage and festivals like Nrmal Collective’s Festival Nrmal and MTYMX draw international artists to perform while helping to build Monterrey’s reputation in the global music underground.
It's impossible to keep track of all the bands coming out of Monterrey these days, but get the stats on these 10 artists and you’ll be ready to navigate its teeming music scene. Let's start with
#10 Toy Selectah
#10 Toy Selectah
Toy Selectah, AKA Toy Hernández, is an OG in Monterrey music and one of its leading lights today. As a founding member of the hip hop group Control Machete, and later as a producer and DJ, he achieved legendary status early in his career. Now he’s returned with a white hot EP of electro-cumbia based dance floor exploration called Mex Machine. Like any good elder, he mentors new artists like Sheeqo Beat and Niña Dioz, lending them the benefit of his experience and credibility of his name – and, of course, he continues to lead the way sonically.
The hottest emcee in Monterrey is a small, blonde girl with a blasphemously bold handle. Her real name is Carla Reyes, but after witnessing one of her high-velocity mic attacks most people just call Niña Dioz amazing. Her skills are reflected in her resume, which to date includes two well-received mixtapes, a radio hit for her song “Cuando Cuando,” a sweet collab with Li Saumet of Bomba Estéreo and, of course, working with Toy Selectah. We’re quivering in anticipation for her debut album Nueva Escuela.
Teenage DJ/producers Sheeqo Beat (19), Erick Rincon (17), and DJ Otto (18) burst into the consciousness of the dance music world less than a year ago with an omnivorously sample-crazed mutation of tribal guarachero people call 3ball. When their powers combine they are the 3Ball MTY (Tribal Monterrey) Crew and they destroy parties in Monterrey. Toy Selectah came across a bootleg CD of their music in an open air market and summoned them to his studio. With his guidance they put out the 3Ball MTY EP and their mixes started whizzing around the world.
This fresh faced electropop trio caught our attention with the Buckaroo Banzai-themed video for their single “Fiebre de Jack.” Their name is a reference to another ’80s classic, The Breakfast Club. Having now released their album Millionaria to accolades, they’ve become pillars of the scene. When we interviewed them at the Vive Latino festival we discovered they are hilarious in addition to being producers stone cold synth jams like their riff on “Why (Does Your Love Hurt So Much)?” If you catch them live watch for emcee and (yet another) Toy Selectah protégé Milkman in tow.
Quiero Club is a band of true indie rock originals. Starting in 2006 with their loopy experimental pop debut WOF, the quintet became standard bearers for the fun-loving and try-anything vibe of Monterrey independent music. Nueva America, 2009’s more polished follow up, clinched their status as heroes of the alternative dance floor. As members of the Happy-Fi Collective with Yo! Linares and a growing family of others, they continue to support that spirit of creativity by throwing parties and releasing weird yet catchy songs like this year’s “Que Hacer en Caso de Oir Voces (What to Do if You Hear Voices).” (They suggest you pump up the volume.)
Though they are on the cheerfully eclectic Happy-Fi label with Quiero Club, Yo! Linares’s sound is a world away from electropop. The quartet’s simply named debut El Disco is a driving and rambunctious rock album nestled between cathartic post-hardcore and rump-shaking indie rock in the tradition of Les Savy Fav. Their track “Corazon Amazonico” of their debut was made for shouting along to, pumping your fists, and possibly breaking things. If there was ever any doubt, this band will assure you that rock ‘n’ roll is alive and well and living in Mexico.
Ridiculously prolific DJ and producer Javier Estrada can drop hard dubstep or hyperactive pre-Hispanic mixes with equal aplomb. He gets props from global bass heads for his Ritmos del Mundo albums. We give him props for “Indigenous Power,” his first peoples-upping collab with Tribe Called Red and his boldly obvious Gloria Estefan moombahton mix. The number he did on “Tonga” was a hit and a brilliant no brainer. We can’t even guess at what he’ll come up with next but we know we won’t have to wait long to find out. He throws new stuff up on his Soundcloud page multiple times a week.
These guys are a hardworking hardcore punk band that started as a joke. With two full-length albums, Mocosos Pateticos and Tiempos de Austeridad under their belt now, Ratas del Vaticano proves that beautiful things can come from taking a joke waaay too far. Fuzzy and skuzzy, they’re easily the biggest dirtbags on this list and they rock the hardest too. That is why we love them. They remind us of the trashy, beery ’80s punk bands that populated the innumerable Killed By Death compilations, which is a lot harder to pull off these days than you might imagine.
On the other end of the drums and guitar spectrum, Los Llamarada carry a torch for mind-bending noise rock. Cerebral and primitive at the same time, the quartet gets respect and appreciation from fans of experimental music and punk weirdness both above and below the Mexico/US border and invitations to play all over the world. Most of the band’s members have psychology degrees, which might explain why their unpredictable music can mess with your head.
This duo with the NSFW name has been drawing favorable comparisons to The Postal Service for their melancholic electropop ballads. But they won’t make you feel like it’s 2003. These two take a glitch-ier, hip hop-damaged approach, for a sound that is one of the freshest on this list. Their recent EP F**k Brooklyn is a downtempo daydream that we’ll still be chilling to in 2012. Also, they have freaking amazing (if somewhat upsetting) music videos.
Photo courtesy of F**ck Her, or the Terrorists Win More Lists
