Narcosis were short-lived pioneers of the underground Peruvian punk scene in Lima in the early 1980s.
Here’s another blast of hardcore punk rock, this time from a Peruvian band I’ve never heard of – and I’m willing to bet no one else here has either.
Narcosis emerged in the mid-’80s on Lima’s underground rock scene as it began to branch out into punk and hardcore.
In classic fashion, the band lasted little more than a year, but managed to release a self-financed and self-produced album, and a live recording, and are remembered as one of the most influential groups in Peruvian rock.
Their debut album was a cassette tape called Primera Dosis (First Dose) that’s become the most copied, recopied and pirated album in the country’s musical history.
The reason, I’m guessing, is as much to do with their lyrics as their uncompromising sound: addressing topics such as depression, blasphemy, negativity, anarchism, social activism and “the consequences of human indoctrination.”
The group had started out in true punk fashion after guitarist Fernando Vial placed an ad for musicians in a magazine called Segunda Mano (Second Hand) in late 1983.
It was answered by Jorge Madueño and Alvaro Carrillo, who brought along a friend with a drum set, Luis Piccini. And so a band was born – though Piccini soon left and Madueño took over as drummer, with Carrillo on vocals and Vial on guitar.
They ran through a series of names – Sociedad Anónima (Anonymous Society), Los Descartados (The Disposables), and Los Descartables (The Discarded) before settling on Narcosis, taken from Herman Hesse’s novel Siddhartha.
At the time Lima had a thriving underground music scene of punk and hardcore bands and Narcosis played their first gig at a venue called the Carnaby Bar alongside a pair of better known local bands, LeuZemia and Masacre, in late 1984.
Carrillo then left the band after that solitary gig so, when they were offered another gig at the Palizada Pub, they recruited a new vocalist, a friend of Vial’s called Luís “Wicho” García.
The following February they performed in front of 5,000 people at a punk festival in Lima that made the sort of headlines the Pistols could only have dreamed of when they were getting banned all over the UK.
There was already a heavy police presence and as soon as Narcosis launched into their song Sucio Policía (Filthy Cop), the festival came to an abrupt end as the real police began firing into the air and rushing the stage.
Enthused by the attention they received. the trio began to write more songs together and recoirded their debut album in Madueño’s living room, using a portable 4-track tape recorder owned by García, which he rigged up with a microphone, and a Walkman tape-player as mixing board.
Considered to be Peru’s first entirely-DIY rock album, the first run of 200 tapes sold out instantly and the band was offered a recording contract by a local label, but turned it down, preferring to carry on independently.
Their second album, Acto De Magia (Magic Trick), was a live recording of a gig at the Magia bar in Lisbon’s Barranco district, again using portable 4-track recorder and makeshift microphone.
Narcosis split up in 1986 but reunited in 2001 for two 15th anniversary appearances and have occasionally come back together since then, including a 2007 concert in Medellin, Colombia, a series of 25th anniversary shows all over Peru, and a 2014 punk festival – Revolución Caliente – at the national stadium in Lima.