Los Bukis - Casas de Carton @FLAC

One of the earliest releases by Los Bukis and probably one of the earliest circulating on CD. The successful cuts are available elsewhere, but it's the earnest grittiness of the whole that makes this brief disc a keeper. The sound is a far cry from the '80s ballads that sustained the Bukis' superstardom (by then they were, for all intents and purposes, the backing band for lead singer/songwriter Marco Antonio Solis), but it has aged oh so much better.

Here, the sheer charm of a lo-fi mistakes-and-all recording, and the starkness of a stripped-down organ-guitar-bass-drums combo overcome the unadventurous music and clichéd, lyrics that are the stock in trade of this genre. The Bukis play and sing with real imagination and honesty.

Throughout, Solis displays an early mastery of craftsmanship that would mark his later successes, but here he is less of a romantic crooner and more an enthusiastic young man living the dream. The harmonies here are unrehearsed and unaffected. The playing is scruffy, but effective. This is obviously the live sound of the band, transferred as faithfully as possible for the recording studio.