Nunca Tarde – a round-up of recent new albums (Ana Carla Maza, Rita Donte, Raúl Monsalve y los Forajidos, Alex Figueira, Coke and many more)
19 April, 2025I’ve been so busy trying to halt the inexorable march of dandelions in these parts that I’ve let the new albums pile up on me. Nevertheless, thanks to my trusty MP3 player (no doubt already an audio antique), I can tell you about the following new releases…
Ana Carla Maza: Caribe DeLuxe (ACM Global Music)
I caught this wonderful vibrant Cuban cellist, composer and vocalist, based now in France, at Brive’s Bleu en Hiver festival in January 2024. Roberto Fonseca’s show later that evening started later than scheduled because neither the audience nor the performer wanted to stop the carnival. Her new album combines a number of live and/or re-mastered versions of numbers from 2023’s Caribe and some new compositions. So in some ways it’s a kind of holding album to keep her fans happy while she tours and no doubt composes new material for her next album. If so, it’ll certainly keep this fan happy for the time being.
Rita Donte: Ritual (Ansonia Records)
Based in Mexico but born in Cuba, Rita Donte is a singer and flamenco dancer who sets out on this gorgeous album to honour her Cuban heritage while integrating Mexican influences. The result is something that will delight anyone who has ever embraced the Buena Vista Social Club. Given its retro sound recalling a golden age of Cuban music, it’s appropriate that it comes out on the recently revitalised Ansonia Records, founded in 1949 by the Puerto Rican Rafael Pérez and named after a hotel on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. A retro-tastic album by an artist who promises to keep on giving.
Cristiano Nascimento & Wim Welker: Portraits (Noa Music)
This intimate duologue between two guitarists pays homage to the celebrated composers of Brazilian choro music, that happy marriage of European classical and the more traditional music of Brazil. The electric jazz guitar of Welker and the 7-string Brazilian acoustic guitar of Nascimento are in perfect synchronisation and harmony throughout the 10 meditative numbers that constitute a lovely restful album you can play while quietly preparing vegetables.
Edson Machado & Boa Nova: Edson Machado & Boa Nova (Far Out Recordings)
Here’s a long-buried album from way back when, unearthed by London’s Brazilian music specialists, Far Out Recordings. Edison Machado was a drummer who recorded this unreleased double album with four compatriots and the American musician Steve Sacks in New York in 1978. The drummer formed Bossa Três, the first instrumental bossa nova group, in the 1960s and collaborated with the likes of Antonio Carlos Jobim, Stan Getz and Chet Baker. Persecution by the Brazilian military dictatorship forced him to move to New York, where he founded the Boa Nova group. Although most of the 11 generally long numbers are written by Brazilian songwriters, this is post-bop jazz very much in the vein of Art Blakey and Cannonball Adderley. Listening to it, you wonder why in the name of Sounds and Colours it was never released until now.
Raúl Monsalve y los Forajidos: SOL (Olindo Records)
Still with the emphasis very much on percussion, the Venezuelan Raúl Monsalve learnt about the importance of drumming and rhythmic patterns while cutting his teeth in his native Caracas on post-rock, avant-jazz-rock and Latin music. Based in Paris for the last decade, he works largely with musicians from the Latin diaspora in London and Paris to explore the complex heritage of his homeland. 2020’s Bichos was the first flowering of this musical mission, putting los Farajidos firmly on the map. Produced by Malcolm Catto of Heliocentrics fame and Yann Jankielewicz, musical director of Tony Allen’s band, and featuring contributions from the likes of Emanative (Nick Woodmansey) and Venezuelan master percussionist Gustavo Ovalles , this thrilling new album positively explodes with Afro-Latin flavours.
Alex Figueira: Colliding Layers (Jazzaggression Records)
Here’s another musical mustang who refuses to be corralled. Psychedelic rock? Avant-jazz? Post-either? I don’t know how you would describe this. There are shades of Tortoise, perhaps, in these 10 instrumental numbers built around synth-heavy, guitar-centric, challenging time signatures and offbeat percussion, but at the end of an exhilarating listening experience you might simply mouth the phrase sui generis. Whatever… All you really need to know is that this Holland-based, Venezuelan-born son of Portuguese parents is a drummer, DJ, producer and all-round maverick who has come up with something singular.
Pambelé: Dámelo (La Ruche)
While on a psychedelic trajectory… the debut album by this Franco-Colombian septet is a beguiling mix of traditional Afro-Colombian rhythms and psychedelic sounds from the Sixties. The members of the band – mainly Colombian in origin – have collaborated on various musical projects here in France, such as The Bongo Hop, João Selva, Bigre Big Band and others of the ubiquitous Bruno Patchworks. The voice of the Panamanian singer Yomira John blends beautifully with traditional percussion and the haunting sound of the gaita, the traditional flute of Colombia, to create a memorable first release that promises much for the future.
Coke: Coke (Mr. Bongo)
Enough already of such dynamic contemporary sounds. Let’s go back in time for a while. Back in fact to 1972, for this Latin funk album originally released on Miami’s Sound Triangle Records. If the few obligatory slower numbers are a little wet, the mainly up-tempo numbers are surprisingly good, exuding a feel of early Santana, with a signature swirling organ sound hitched to some solid percussion (and occasional brass refrains). Peter Fernandez’s vocals, replete with many a “girl” and “baby”, hint at British beat groups from the ‘60s like The Zombies – which is less preposterous than it might appear if you consider that Santana covered “She’s Not There”. Coke has more than enough highlights to warrant a plunge.
Gary Corben: Wah-ee-O (Nunca Termina Records)
This one’s bang up-to-date, but a pronounced retro feel befits someone who specialised for many years in reissuing classics from the ‘60s and ‘70s. I loved Gary Corben’s 2019 release Gods in Brasil, an album of the songs he’d been writing for years recorded with his friend Kassin in Poland with mainly Polish musicians. It was chock-full of deliciously melodic pop music such as his paean to Johnny Walker whisky, “Juanito Caminante”. The new album is the Rio-based artist’s tribute to an era in his adoptive Brazil when, under the dictatorship, artists would mix imported elements of British beat music and American soul with home-grown sounds. There are more instrumentals this time round, such as this tribute to the arranger Gary McFarland, the big-production title track and “Who Knows When”, a quirky cocktail-lounge-ish number with vibes, but half or more of the 11 songs feature his distinctive, almost naïve vocals sung in both English and, to these ears at least, a very passable Portuguese.
El Léon Pardo: Viaje Sideral (AYA Records)
On his second album, the trumpeter and maestro of the kuisi and other ancient Colombian flutes and member of the UK/Colombian Mestizo project fuses traditional and contemporary sounds with nerve and verve. The album’s title translates as Space Voyage and when this fusion works best, as on the extraordinary title track here (with faint echoes of two of Pardo’s musical reference points, Kraftwerk and Terry Riley), you feel like some cosmic voyager bound for uncharted galaxies. As I said in my Songlines review – and I’ll say it again – Viaje Sideral is quite a trip. What’s more, those Colombian flutes have rarely sounded this good.
The Mexican Standoff: Hola Texas! (Brasuca Discos)
The Mexican-American all-female quartet’s first album came out on 11th March, which just happens to be the birthday of their special guest, Flaco Jiménez. Recorded in San Antonio, Texas, these six tracks blend classic Tex-Mex or Mexamericana music with generous flavours of ranchero and mariachi. This playful take on a 1950s classic by Flaco’s father will give you a good idea of what to expect. My only beef is that the album is so short that I was left toying whether it was an EP or a genuine long-player.
El Mató a un Policia Motorizado: 20 Aniversario En Vivo (Primavera Labels)
While the music isn’t exactly my cup of tea, there’s something quite admirable about a band that chooses a cumbersome name like this. Tripping off the tongue, it does not. Still, the quintet from La Plata has been one of Argentina’s top indie rock bands for over 20 years, and the new album celebrates their musical evolution over the period. The 10 tracks apparently mirror the band’s eponymous first album (from 2004) with live performances that retain the essence of the original. It’s enhanced by an audiovisual recording of the session along with interviews and behind-the-scenes footage, so if you like indie rock with both polish and raw energy, this could be what you’re looking for.
La Revolucíon de Emiliano Zapata: La Revolucíon de Emiliano Zapata (Munster Records)
And here’s another band with a remarkably un-catchy name, this time Mexico’s finest. A psychedelic rock band that tasted a little international success in the 1970s, I guess they were influenced name-wise by the likes of Quicksilver Messenger Service and 13th Floor Elevators. Musically, there are traces of Creedence Clearwater Revival and the ‘orrible ‘Oo. The album’s opener, the splendidly entitled “Nasty Sex”, might certainly have raised a smirk on Roger Daltrey’s face. Again, it’s one for lovers of (jingle-jangle, reverberating) electric guitars – and if you opt for the LP, it comes with a poster to stick on your wall.
Estrellas de Buena Vista: Live in Havana (One World Records)
Finally, just to show that you can’t mute a musical brand, here’s the next generation of Buena Vista stars going through their paces in Havana’s Teatro Nacional last year. The Estrellas were formed to keep the Social Club’s flag flying and the audience reaction throughout suggests that it’s flying high in a friendly sky. They’re directed by tres player, Pancho Amat, who has worked, suitably enough, with Ry Cooder and Omara Portuondo among many more. Of the 16 musicians featured, eight are veterans of the original BVSC. The repertoire, as you might glean from this version of Guillermo Portabales’ old warhorse, are the expected classics from the golden age of traditional Cuban music. It’s every bit as good as one might imagine, but just a tad hackneyed in this day and age.
Well, there you have it. That’s me done for another month. Suffice to mention that the photograph of Raúl Monsalve comes courtesy of Ruggiero Cafagna and to wish you a merry month of May in prospect.
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