I have been meaning to introduce to this blog for a long time the mastermind behind “the most important Hollywood production in the history of cumbia” (see video above), and more importantly the one and only Cumbia Pilgrim in search of the Temple of San Juanita Chinola all over the world: RANDY SALAZAR JR.

Hailing from a city rich in cumbia – Monterrey, Mexico – Randy Salazar Jr. is finally releasing his EP El Extraño Retorno, which includes a remix of Vostok-1 by Cumbia Cosmonauts.  You can buy it on iTunes now, and so support his pilgrimage.   You can also download one of the songs free here:

I first became aware of the sacred quest of Randy Salazar Jr. via an mp3 folder of cumbias that he DJs, which I got off a harddrive of a friend from Tijuana back in 2006.  His “Cumbias Rebajadas” (slowed down cumbias) and his project Grupo Chambelan were one of the earliest influence first on my DJ sets and ultimately the Cumbia Cosmonauts.

If you know anything about the Mexican music scene you would know Plastilina Mosh, a traditional irreverent Mexican Pop group, and Randy Salazar Jr. is their VJ.   So it was of course inevitable that the VJ would become director, and Randy Salazar Jr. produced his first first person documentary La Experiencia Randy Salazar: Chapter 1 changing the history of youtube forever.  Filmed in Mexico City, the climactic moment is when the hallucinogenic fried pork rinds give him an important vision.  It has many subtitles where it’s necessary:

In Chapter 2 he visits Bogota, Colombia, birthland of cumbia…