Thirty years since the release of the Colombian band’s pivotal album, La Pipa de La Paz (The Pipe for Peace), Aterciopelados brings its psychedelic universe to the Tiny Desk. The set’s complete with ceramic decorations and a quilted flag handmade by Andrea Echeverri herself. When they splashed onto the rock en español scene in the 1990s, they weren’t just the only major band with a woman at the helm — they made songs with unapologetically feminist and environmentalist messages a core part of their art. In a sea of leather jacket-clad dudes taking inspiration from their Anglo and European counterparts, Echeverri and Héctor Buitrago did something radically different: They turned to the folkloric traditions of their native Colombia to blaze a new path for Latin alternative music.
