Los Pirañas are a Colombian trio who inject traditional Latin American rhythms with elements of psychedelia, afrobeat and rock to spectacular effect.

This gem caught my ear while delving into The Quietus’s reliably abstruse list of the year’s best albums.

As ever, I have only heard about five of the hundred, and only heard *of* about five more; if that. But this one caught my eye, and has now caught my ear, for a number of reasons.

The first is prosaic: I was enjoying Celebrity Race Around The World on iPlayer, in which contestants are given a tiny sum of money – with no credit cards or phones – to travel thousands of miles using little more than their own initiative.

It’s like the best travel show ever, thanks in part to the amazing photography of ever-changing people and places, with the latest series starting in Mexico and taking in Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Costa Rica and Panama, ending up in Colombia.

I’ve always had a soft spot for Colombian music and this group – Los Pirañas – injects a contemporary psychedelic element, and a touch of afrobeat, into the country’s musical traditions.

For almost 30 year Eblis Alvarez, Mario Galeano and Pedro Ojeda have been putting their eccentric stamp on Latinamerican styles like vallenato, Peruvian chicha, and Colombian champeta and cumbia.

They’ve been likened to a tropical Captain Beefheart and Carlos Santana on acid, but that undersells their combination of raw punk energy and musical virtuosity.

Most of their songs are lively affairs – and you can hear them on albums like Historia Natural and new one Una Oportunidad Mas De Triunfar En La Vida.

But this slower number, with dub-like effects, is lovely too.