Los Diablos Rojos

Ritmo Satánico

Los Diablos Rojos is a Peruvian cumbia band formed in Cañete Chico, with the aim, according to the Light in the Attic and Rough Trade listings, of an instrumental tropical style of its own. Several unrelated acts share the name, among them a Mexican baseball club, so only the Peruvian band is covered here. MusicBrainz lists one such artist, country Peru, begun in 1970. Its leader, lead guitarist and composer is Marino Valencia, also written Valencia Garay. Songlines calls them a six-piece playing jangly, twin-guitar tropical cumbia, with both vocal and instrumental tracks. English Wikipedia lists them among the bands influenced by Los Destellos, with Los Mirlos and Los Ecos.

The band recorded at Sonoradio in the 1970s and early 1980s. Discos Fantástico! of Madrid reissued a compilation of that material in 2024 as Ritmo Satánico (FANT003), with music by Valencia Garay. The label lists 13 tracks: "Los Amantes", "Sácalo", "Guitarra Tropical", "Yo Tuve Un Amor", "Mariposita Roja", "Pedacito de Mi Vida", "A Todo Tren", "La Satánica", "Noche Flamenca", "La Primavera", "Konga E.", "El Chacarero" and "El Primer Beso". Songlines's Mark Sampson gave it 3 of 5 in October 2024, finding good music but a single-track sound. Trome reported in July 2024 that Valencia would publish a book on the history of Peruvian cumbia, and he told Expreso, per a summary we could not open, that the group brought electric guitar into instrumental cumbia.

Compilation appearances reported only by search summaries include "Sácalo Sácalo" on The Roots of Chicha, which we could not confirm. No source we found ties the song in our collection, "El Avispón", to this band. The only documented "El avispón" in Peruvian cumbia sources is on Las guitarras tropicales (MAG, 1968) by the studio group Silvestre Montez y sus Guantanameros, so our upload may be misattributed or a different recording.