From Pistolera, a danceable beat with a political edge

Pistolera - (from left) Maria Elena, Inca B. Satz, Sandra Lilia Velásquez, and Ani Cordero - brings the sounds of Mexico to the Rock en Español Festival Friday. (M. Sharkey)

NEW YORK - Listening to Pistolera's self-released debut, "Siempre Hay Salida" ("There's Always a Way Out"), or watching lead singer and guitarist Sandra Lilia Velásquez stamp out a beat in her boots to bandmate Maria Elena's accordion melodies, you inevitably feel as though you've landed in the heart of Mexico.

The blend of soulful ranchera, peppy cumbia, and Spanish lyrics evokes a feeling that's distinctly south of the border, yet not too far south. But Velásquez, the daughter of Mexican immigrants who was born and raised in San Diego, 10 minutes from the border, says that it took living in New York to bring Pistolera into being.

"If I hadn't left California, I might not be playing the music I play with Pistolera," the 31-year-old says over chai at the cozy Tea Lounge in Park Slope. "It wasn't until I moved to New York that I realized I missed the sounds of my childhood, and wanted to re-create them."

Those sounds are what Velásquez, who brings her band to the Rock en Español Festival at the Jorge Hernández Cultural Center Friday night, would hear crossing the border for lunch or blaring from the living room stereo during the parties her parents threw. But they're equally evocative of driving through a dusty Mexican countryside or lolling in a dim cantina.

Whether Pistolera is classified as cumbia or norteño or ranchera rock, it matters little to Velásquez, who also writes the band's songs: "We just want to make something you can dance to."

Like other New York outfits like Gogol Bordello, and perhaps more obviously Mexican-born singer Lila Downs, Pistolera has found fertile ground in the city known for its own exuberant cultural stylings. The band has taken its self-described "Latin alt-folklórico" from the city's museums and indie clubs to the South by Southwest music conference this past March, and from there to Belgium, Holland, and, fittingly, Mexico.

When Velásquez and her bandmates, drummer Ani Cordero (Velásquez's cousin), accordionist Elena, and bassist Inca B. Satz (the band's only man) come to Boston, they hope to ride the momentum the roaming Clandestino Spanish rock parties have stirred in the city. (Clandestino is co-sponsoring the Rock en Español Festival with La Casa de La Cultura/Center for Latino Arts.)

"There's a movement in Spanish rock to incorporate a rock sensibility with elements from the artist's background to create a fresh new sound," says Alex Alvear, performing arts manager at the La Casa de La Cultura. He invited Pistolera to play the festival because, he says, they do this fusion well.

"You can listen to a couple of chords or bars and tell it's them," he says. "Sometimes when you hear rock bands in Spanish, it takes a long time to tell who's who."

Pistolera's rock sensibility was forged in the early '90s, when cousins Velásquez and Cordero, then teenagers, were playing in indie-rock bands on opposite US coasts. "I was a huge Smiths fan," Velásquez says. "I was into Mudhoney; I listened to Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd." After her pre-Pistolera band, Carmelize, broke up in late 2004, Velásquez took her guitar on a family visit to Mexico and returned to New York with a set of distinctly Mexican songs. She recruited Cordero to play drums on them and found Elena through a Lower East Side accordion shop called Main Squeeze. Satz, a friend of Cordero's, joined on bass.

You could imagine parts of "Siempre Hay Salida" blaring from behind a teenager's walls: the ska-like "Tatuaje" ("Tattoo") finds both pain and joy in a breakup, while "Algo Pa' Que Te Olvides" ("Something to Help You Forget") is an impossibly catchy rallying cry for perseverance.

Like some of the acts Pistolera is compared to - Manu Chao, the Colombian rock duo Aterciopelados, and Los Lobos, whom Pistolera considers a main influence - many of the band's songs touch on political themes. "Cazador" ("Hunter"), a protest against the Minutemen civilian border patrol, includes lyrics that translate to: "They say they are protecting, the country from illegals/ But how, if this same land was stolen from Mexicans?/ . . . You with the binoculars, who comes to patrol, go home."

For Velásquez, being raised in San Diego by an immigration-lawyer mother made the immigration issue omnipresent. "Families crossing the border for work, the racism against them, and the economic disparity on one side of the border compared to the other . . . are things we're very vocal about," she says. While she considers most of the album's songs to be serious, its "frivolous" moment is "Me Gusta Tomar" ("I Like to Drink"), a raucous cantina anthem that conjures images of Lila Downs after tossing back one too many.

Pistolera is in the studio recording its second album, due in the spring. In the meantime, the group will play globalFEST in New York in January and return to South by Southwest in March.

From there it's back to Mexico and on to Spain and Portugal. And although what will follow those tours is uncertain, Velásquez will no doubt be penning new songs at every step.

"I always have music in my head," she says. "Life is never short on material."