Secret Planet Live Presents: Chicha Libre

August 29th, 7-10pm CHICHA: THE CUMBIA OF PERU Secret Planet Live Presents Chicha Libre with DJ Bongohead Chicha Libre is a Brooklyn-based six-piece founded by Olivier Conan, the French expatriate behind the influential Barbès Records label, the Barbès nightclub in Park Slope, and a close friend to Secret Planet and our local festival homage to that Park Slope venue — Barbès in the Woods. Conan was first introduced to chicha — the psychedelic Peruvian cumbia born in the Amazon and the barrios of Lima during the 1960s and '70s — on a trip to Peru in 2005. His curation of the landmark compilation The Roots of Chicha in 2007 is widely credited with reintroducing the genre to international audiences. Chicha Libre became the first non-Peruvian band to disseminate chicha and psychedelic cumbia outside of Peru. In recent years, they've been joined by many other international groups all inspired by that very specific, gritty style of cumbia that emerged in Peru in the 60s and 70s, as local folkways embraced pan-Latin cumbia and the varying influences of big oil, surf rock cassettes, and ayahuasca.