In Venezuela in the early 1960s, there were three bands that mattered: Billo’s Caracas Boys, Los Melódicos and Conjunto Ingeniería. Although the last of these didn’t have the recording output, and hence the profile across Latin America, as the others, there was no doubt that for a decade they were just as important to Caracas’ tropical music scene.

Formed by a group of students, who mainly came from the engineering faculty, hence their name, Conjunto Ingeniería (The Engineering Group), they came to life in 1959 with a heavy influence from the Latin big band sound of New York, but marked themselves out from the offset due to their love of rock ‘n’ roll. So much so that their debut self-titled album, released in 1961, featured “Amorcito”, their cover of “Little Darlin’”, a hit in the US for The Diamonds, and arguably the first rock ‘n’ roll song recorded in Venezuela. But, this was only part of the story, for the group were also well versed in mambo, bolero, guaracha, cha-cha-chá and charanga, and from the moment they formed they were regulars on all Venezuela’s TV channels, at student parties, at quinceañeras (15th birthday celebrations to mark a “girl’s journey into womanhood”) and at carnival, where one year they accompanied Celia Cruz.

In their roughly 10 years of existence they released three albums, all of which El Palmas Music have cherrypicked for this compilation, which offers an important document of one of Venezuela’s most iconic tropical groups. “Aefo”, the first single from the compilation, was originally featured on the group’s final album, Boogaloo Con Ingenieria, released in 1967, and which made clear the influence of New York in their sound, with the group adopting the boogaloo of Pete Rodriguez, Tito Puente and Ricardo Ray. Yet, things were never so simple, and Conjunto Ingeniería were always creative in the studio, with “Aefo” a great example. Written by two of the group’s directors, Alberto Espinoza and Oswaldo Flores, who were brothers-in-law, it features menacing vocals spelling out the authors’ initials, “A, E, F, O”, over an ominous, brooding groove, one of those rhythms that can’t help but stop you in your tracks.

“Aefo” will be released by El Palmas Music on 19th August 2022