Music: Border Wave

The first inspiration for the utterly distinctive Nortec Collective came through loud and clear. It was the 1980s and Tijuana was enjoying the world's best radio reception, courtesy of stations just over the border in San Diego skirting U.S. telecommunications law by setting up huge, powerful towers in Mexico.

"What was big back then were the techno-pop bands like New Order and Depeche Mode," says Roberto Mendoza, aka Panoptica in Nortec -- short for Northern Mexico techno -- which performs Saturday at Walker Art Center. "So when all of the kids wanted to be in a local band, we didn't grab a guitar, we grabbed a synthesizer."

The second inspiration came from the streets of Tijuana. Mendoza said he and Nortec founder Pepe Mogt (aka Fussible) "were doing what all the groups were doing," copying European and U.S. electronica styles. "We didn't have anything that made us different, or anything local sounding. And we just started brainstorming. Then one day Pepe came up and said, 'All this time, what we needed was right in front of us!'"

That was norteño, banda and other indigenous styles of Mexican music, imbued with the swooning accordion phrases and oom-pah-pah tubas of European music but with south-of-the-border vigor and spice.

"Growing up, every party or wedding we'd go to would be playing it, so we were all exposed to it," Mendoza said.

Mogt made samples from discarded audition tapes at a Tijuana studio, and gave them to friends, who began slicing and dicing them into their mixes. The music made a splash among the student population in Tijuana, and evolved into a full-fledged album, "Tijuana Sessions, Vol. 1," released in 2001. It didn't sell many copies, but led to more than a few commercial jingles for organizations ranging from Volvo to soccer's governing body, FIFA.

A band of five

Each member-producer brings a unique personality to his material, creating a multifaceted, yet simpatico, mix. Mogt is "the one who has been a producer the longest," said Mendoza, "so anything he puts out, even in demo form, sounds really good, and smooth. Ramon [Amezcua, aka Bostitch] is raw, in that he uses a lot of brass instruments in a catchy way," as in the song "Autobanda," which plops a tuba into the mix like a hippo wading across a stream.

The "Shaft"-like guitar sample and sexy-kitsch flavor of "Funky Tamazula" was co-produced by Jorge (Clorofila) Verdin, described by Mendoza as "a guy who uses a lot of humor but is still very deep and melodic. And Pedro's work" -- that would be Pedro (Hiperboreal) Gabriel Beas -- "is like his personality. It sounds like a big guy sitting down to have a beer or wine.

"I am the most difficult to know," Mendoza said with a mischievous laugh. "No, I have a dub [music] influence, so there are a lot of delays and reverb on what I do. But I am managing to get away from that a little bit now."

Nortec is currently working on its third disc, tentatively scheduled for next summer, between tour dates like Saturday's, which will include three live musicians in addition to the producers and their synthesizers, and a video person coordinating images in time with the music.

In the end, Mendoza said, Nortec is emblematic of the wild and woolly border city where he was born and still resides.

"But it is having a little bit of everything. We have a really dusty, rundown city, and a really rich, urban city, and there is always the excitement of living between things. Nortec Collective has right wing and left wing, Catholic and not Catholic, people in Mexico and one member who lives in Pasadena. [Tijuana has] businesspeople and tourists and students on the street and people balancing their packages on the train.