(Photo Credit: Carlos Maidana)
New York, NY (August 6, 2024) – Twanguero is Spanish-born, Los Angeles-based exploratory guitarist Diego Garcia and his band. The outfit will release their escapist and subtly nostalgic seventh album, Panamerica on September 27 via Cosmica Artists.
Today Twanguero released his version of the Rubén Fuentes’ classic “La Bikina” — more inspired by the Caribbean with hints of Rumba and Brazilian guitar. Unlike the original, which is in ternary time, the arrangement is done over a two-beat measure.
“With Panamerica in mind, I imagined a musical journey towards both the familiar and the unknown,” says Garcia of the track. “‘La Bikina’ embodies precisely that idea: a catchy melody that has crossed epochs and genres. Originally rooted in Mexican folklore, the song gained popularity and recognition through its countless versions. Inspired by the original version, challenged by others, I offered my own interpretation of ‘La Bikina’: a Twangy version as a tribute to Mariachi from a bold and unexplored angle.”
Enjoy/Share “La Bikina” on YouTube + Listen on DSPs + pre-order Panamerica
“La Bikina” follows the release of “Fue tanto el amor,” which personifies Garcia’s cinematic approach to his famously evocative songwriting.
The 10-track Panamerica is a largely instrumental, vibrant, and virtuoso coming together of North American electric guitar and rock ‘n roll heritage with classical guitar-based bolero, cumbia, Tejano, ranchera and rhumba influences from Latin America, alongside hints of Hawaiian, surf, and country music. Filtering stylishly throwback vibes through the prism of Garcia’s very here-and-now creative curiosity, it’s a percussion-adorned album of what he calls “new nostalgia.”
Already dubbed, “A Journey into North and Latin America” by Rolling Stone, Twanguero consciously pursued a multi-cultural, genre-straddling Pan-American expression on the album.
Just as his previous Twanguero album, 2022’s Carreteras Secundarias, Vol. 2, channeled the Costa Rican rainforest where it was composed, this time Panamerica captures the cosmopolitan, multi-genre vibes of its LA backstory.
When Garcia’s initial plan to track the album at different studios across the Americas was nixed by pandemic restrictions, he retreated to a boat in an LA marina where he lived and composed the record for 18 months.
And the name of that boat? By pure coincidence, it was called the Panamerica. It felt like fate and only affirmed Garcia’s direction for his new record.
The four-piece Twanguero – completed by percussion, drums, and bass – has scheduled extensive touring in Europe and across the Americas in support of the album and has announced an album release show in Nashville at Analog at The Hutton on September 25.
“For me, Panamerica is transporting. It moves the mind to another place, instantly,” Garcia concluded. “It’s open to the listener, but I want to take you away fromwhere you are, at least for the three minutes of a song or the thirty minutes of the album.”
Panamerica tracklisting:
1 – Danza de Acolita
2 – La Bikina
3 – Rancho del Olvido (with Mireya Ramos)
4 – Reguetwang
5 – Me Gustas Mucho
6 – Rumba #2
7 – Pupilas (with Alih Jey)
8 – Fue tanto el amor
9 – La Cumbia sin nombre
10 – Exodus
