Peru’s Buh Records Is on a Mission to Rescue Latin America’s Avant-Garde History
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Loading... - Valazquez Eri
- 28 Mar 2023
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Colonial habits die hard, even in music. That’s particularly true when it comes to reissues. There’s a booming business for archival music that originates outside the U.S. and Europe, but it’s often packaged by Western labels and framed, however unconsciously, through a classically colonial lens of “discovery.” Is it a good thing that this music is finding a global audience? Absolutely. But how much context gets lost in translation? And more troublingly, who ends up controlling the story?
Buh Records breaks with that extractive model. The label, based in Lima, Peru, specializes in Latin American experimental music, and while its catalog features plenty of contemporary artists from across the region—and the globe—it maintains a strong focus on unearthing overlooked classics and unknown gems that reassert Latin America’s place in avant-garde history.
Founder Luis Alvarado launched the label in 2004. Back then, he was active in Lima’s music scene on multiple fronts: working in record stores, publishing zines, and writing about culture for El Peruano, a national newspaper. Buh was an outgrowth of those endeavors; he got his start as a curator with CD-R compilations like one he assembled to accompany an issue of his zine Autobús, where he mapped out the history of experimental music in Peru. As he began drawing lines between landmark albums of musique concrète, sound poetry, noise, post-punk, industrial, and more, it became clear that most were out of print and largely unknown. “I realized that at some point it would all have to be reissued,” he says over Zoom from his home in Lima, adding, “I didn’t think it would be me that would do it!” Read More…
