I have a weak spot for the special mix of love,sadness and calòr in Latin music, may it be spanish, italian, portuguese, colombian or mexicana. This is a man thing: sure, women sing of pain and love too, but these songs are devised as displays for “male vulnerability”. Of course it’s a toxic and wrong vulnerability, and it often comes with violent feelings: woman, you’re bad, evil, but I cannot let you go. Yet, the music, the melodies are so passionate in a simple, corny way that I can’t help but love them. It’s the case with Perfìdia (emphasis on the first I), which is so catchy I could remember it from way, way back when I heard it on Tv as a kid. Then YouTube came along and I discovered the Los Panchos version (this one in particular, with the endless intro), which is unsurpassable: Hernando Avilés, the singer, carries the melody like a prince. Everyone covered Perfidia, from Linda Ronstadt to Bocelli, but very few managed to capture the macho despair of Los Panchos.
My version features a fixation of mine: Rhythm boxes. Not just old drum machines, which I like, but those ancient instruments (often attached to organs) that only had preset rhythms: Rock, Swing, Beguine, Cha Cha, etc. I really like these presets, and I’ve often used them in the past. In this case it’s (a high quality sample of) the Bossanova rhythm from the 1973 Roland TR 66 (pictured above, click to enlarge), slightly modified. The rest is played by hand. Obviously I didn’t go for amor y sentimiento as only Los Panchos can. Instead I imagined Perfidia in an exotic dance bar for older weed smokers, played by a guitar orchestrina with a drum box.