I remember the first time I saw a Traffic Sound release. This would have been around 1999/2000 and it was in the Psych section of a second hand record shop I used to work near in Twickenham. The shop was mostly made up of vinyl releases so it was quite odd that I should be looking at the CDs as even then I was more interested in analogue music. There was something about the front cover that grabbed my attention and the back told me that this band were from Peru. This CD was also a collection of their first two albums. Supposedly they were highly collectable if you could find the original vinyl. Well, the only place I had the internet was at work and there wasn’t exactly a lot of information about obscure Peruvian bands on there at that time. I remember playing it and not being impressed by the first six songs (except Sueno) as they were all covers which had been done better by other bands. However, the second album was a revelation.
This was nothing like I had heard before. What is classed as South American Psych is very different from the European/North American variety. There were using the same standard instruments as those bands, but Traffic Sound had found their now voice on the second record with a distinct hint of their roots in there. What I didn’t realise was the band had released another two albums after this in Traffic Sound (or Tibet’s Suzettes) and Lux. These albums would prove allusive until I came across a website that specialised in re-issues of music such as this. Annoyingly, I cannot remember the name of it. What I do remember though is that they were one of the first companies I dealt with that went out of business due to the competition from Amazon and the like. Before they went under, I found that they had the two Traffic Sound albums to complete my collection. What I did’t realise until many years was that the editions I had bought came with some B-Sides attached.
These latter albums showed that the band had matured and were becoming more progressive in their sound, as well as adopting some of the Andean folk spirit a lot of websites mentioned they had when I was researching this piece. I’ll take their word for it, but the music was definitely becoming more progressive. That is very clear when listening to it. The last album also contains some political content which could have put the band in danger due to Peru being run by a military government that saw rock music as a dangerous foreign influence on the youth of the country. Unfortunately this would be it for the band as Peru was not a country where a musician could make a living in. The band has reformed for the odd reunion gig but luckily they left a great recording legacy for us to enjoy.
- Virgin
- Tell The World I’m Alive
- Simple
- Sueno
- White Deal, Poco, Big Deal
- Jews Caboose
- Meshkalina
- Tibet’s Suzettes
- Those Days Have Gone
- Yesterday’s Game
- Empty
- Solos
- Lux
- El Gusano
- America
- Inca Snow
- What Your Need & What You Want
- The Revolution
- A Beautiful Day
- Last Song
One or more songs were missing from Spotify so I could not produce a play list for this entry.
I used the front cover of the first CD I bought from this band as the cover for this compilation.