Latin Playboys, Dose (WB) 9+
Dose is the second side project from Los Lobos' David Hidalgo, Louie Perez, Lobos producer Mitchell Froom and engineer Tchad Blake. Like their first album, this is a loosely chaotic, distorted mess. But this time they may have surpassed anything done by Los Lobos. Like tropicalista cut 'n' paste terrorist Tom Ze, or more recently Tom Waits, Beck and Ozomatli, the Latin Playboys cram about a hundred different influences in every song, and make it sound like natural down-home folk music as old as the hills. Which is, as a matter of fact, how the original bluegrass, blues and Mexican folk masters did it in the first place. This is the urban East L.A. folk of roaring engines, creaking snack carts, scratchy percussion, the psychedlic haze of ganja smoke and smog, and oh yeah, some of that screaming rock 'n' roll guitar.
