Monterrey music scene veterans Plastilina Mosh return to L.A. for the first time in six years

Two decades ago, the music of Plastilina Mosh and other artists from Monterrey, Mexico, found a small but passionate scene in Los Angeles — whether it was played at parties among friends or heard in Latin clubs all over the city as DJs mixed their songs with more dance-friendly beats.

Now, after a six-year absence, Plastilina Mosh‘s music will be heard in downtown L.A. again when the duo stops at the Regent Theatre on Tuesday, June 19.

“We’re so happy to finally return, it’s been a long time since we’ve been there,” Alejandro Rosso said in Spanish in a recent telephone interview.

Rosso and musical partner Jonás González will perform a set that he called a journey from the first songs they created 20 years ago to their newest music.

“Los Angeles is a city that has so much diversity in music and culture and we’re always so grateful when people go to our shows… I think they are passionate, love to have fun and it seems like they really listen to the music we’ve made,” Rosso said.

Plastilina Mosh’s musical style can’t be pigeonholed since the duo crosses several genres and styles ranging from rock to hip-hop, electronica, jazz, metal riffs and Latin grooves — sometimes with all of the above plus bilingual lyrics.

For an English language genre-defying equivalent, think Beck, or maybe even the Beastie Boys.

The duo started 1996 in Monterrey and released their first album, “Aquamosh,” in 1998 on Capitol Records. Around that time, their hometown was an rising hotbed of alternative music with acts like Control Machete, Kinky and El Gran Silencio also emerging.

Although these acts were all over the map musically, with Control Machete tapping into hip-hop, El Gran Silencio blending cumbia with Norteño sounds, and Kinky dabbling in the electronic side, they all found common ground as they were spun by the club DJs in L.A. and the home DJs at parties.

Rosso, was unaware that the dissimilar groups had sparked a kinship among listeners in L.A.

“All that generation of musicians from Monterrey, we were all there at the same time but sonically other than that there weren’t many similarities. Sonically I don’t see it as something like grunge coming from Seattle or something along those lines,” he said.

But he speculated that perhaps at that time in Monterrey, without much of the technology of today, musicians had to work hard to create their own sound and get noticed.

“It was never like a movement, everyone was doing their own thing,” he said.

While Plastilina Mosh has plenty of material from its past for the L.A. show, Rosso and González, have been working on a new album, their first since 2008 and since they took a hiatus around 2012-2016.  The first single, a funky dance-friendly tune called “JAJAJA,” was released earlier this year.

“We’ve been on tour since 1998 with our first album and we haven’t stopped playing and playing so after years of touring and recording we wanted to rest a bit….we were lazy (expletive)” Rosso said with a laugh, switching to English for the last portion of the comment.

“Now we’re back and enjoying all this again and for us it’s not about conquering anything or anything like that. We just want to have fun and hope (the audience has fun) too,” he said.