XIXA Covers Simon & Garfunkel's Version of Peruvian Classic 'El Cóndor Pasa (If I Could)'

Tucson, AZ's XIXA have put their own twist on the popular Simon & Garfunkel version of the Peruvian classic "El Cóndor Pasa (If I Could)" - out today. The song is their first new release since 2019's critically acclaimed The Code EP and was recorded as part of the sessions for the band's forthcoming new LP due out early next year.

Listen below!

It takes guts to cover a classic. And few songs fit that description as well as "El Cóndor Pasa," a piece of music whose history is as rich and uplifting as the timeless melody that sits at its heart. Long recognized as part of Peru's National Cultural Heritage, the track was inspired by the autochthonous music and traditions of the Andes, and celebrates hope and freedom. Fitting then that XIXA, America's finest psych desert rockers and a band deeply influenced by Peruvian chicha and cumbia, should be the latest to interpret it, adding their own unique voice to one of the most recognized passages of music of all time.

Following a crossing of the Andes, Peruvian composer Daniel Alomía Robles folded a traditional folk standard he heard along the way into his now famous zarzuela of the same name, a song that so far has been covered an estimated 4,000 times. Its status as the best-known Peruvian song in the English-speaking world is thanks to Simon & Garfunkel, who added lyrics for its inclusion on Bridge Over Troubled Water; this is the version that XIXA have turned into a crusty, windswept desert ballad, as epic as it is haunting.

Gone are the pan pipes, replaced by mournful, yet defiant trumpets. It's a touch slower too, allowing XIXA's Gabriel Sullivan and Brian Lopez to stretch out its famous lines and give their trademark guitar tones a little space to shine. But it is the chorus where their version really soars, their dual vocals wrapping around the brass for an effect that's truly euphoric. The line "He gives the world its saddest sound" has never hit as hard.

The track serves as a teaser for the new material from a band at the peak of their powers. Formed in the heart of the deep American Southwest, XIXA are a guitar-slinging six-piece, uniquely attuned to the desert and their Latin roots. Combining gritty guitars, the bumping grind of chicha, and desert blues into a mesmerizing stew, Tucson's dark, dusty gothic overlords are by turns trippy and devilish, like a jam band getting high on Diá de Los Muertos. They're also a band who've come to define what they call "The New Southwest;" intense, sun-bleached music shot through with an inky gothic horror that scans like the long-lost soundtrack to a cult, macabre B-movie Western.

Their debut record, 2016's Bloodline, saw them inject heavy fuzz guitars and Latin pulses into sandy rock'n'roll, a potent mix that took them all over the world for two whole years. For 2019's EP The Code they blended psych-rock, cumbia, goth rock, cowboy folk and windswept desert blues into a dark, simmering occult. For their forthcoming LP, they've delved even deeper into their admiration for Peruvian chicha, extracted and refined the core, and given voice to their most primal instincts. Informed by the band's rich history as songwriters and storytellers, they've carved a wider space for their psychedelic rock to swell, a place where scoundrels and coyotes roam free, and Magick runs deep in the earth. It is the ultimate desert trip.

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