Nunca Tarde – a round-up of recent new albums (Fabio Bergamini, Ninon Valder, Nyron Higor, Violeta Parra, João Selva and more)

Nothing like a good Latin album to warm the cockles of your heart when it’s cold outside. Here’s my selection of new and not-quite-so-new releases for the first month of a new year…

Joy Lapps and Larnell Lewis: The Caribbean Christmas Mixtape Vol. 1 (self-released)

Lest anyone can’t quite shake off those lingering memories of the holiday season, here’s some food for the festive soul courtesy of a husband-and-wife team who emigrated to Canada from the West Indies. Joy Lapps is a steel-pan artist, while her husband Larnell Lewis is a drummer who has played with Snarky Puppy. With other musicians in tow, they “workshopped” what would become the “mixtape” through live-to-air performances in Toronto. My daughter will love it come next Christmas and it’ll give me a rest from Phil Spector’s Christmas Album. Yes, there’s a certain cheese factor, but you can’t argue with the joy and brio.

Fabio Bergamini: 7 Portais (Belic Music)

Somehow, I managed to miss this one when it came out towards the end of November. I’ve been making up for lost time subsequently, because this is a transcendent album. With its focus on ethnic percussion the world over, it transcends borders in its collaboration with artists from India, South Africa, Mozambique, Japan and Angola. The percussionist and composer originally envisaged it as a solo percussion project, but it ended up featuring 22 percussionists and vocalists from around the world. Supported by a São Paulo cultural initiative, Bergamini describes the project as a “search for the cultural and musical essence of all peoples.”

Ninon Valder: En Mi Corazón (Flying Penguins)

The French singer, composer, flautist and bandoneonist is a big fan of the music of Argentina and has just released her new album, with a dozen tracks either played or sung solo or in duet form with guests like Kevin Seddiki on guitar and Carine Bonnefoy on piano. It’s delicate, meditative stuff that will reward anyone who takes the time to sit down and really listen.

Ronald Snijders: Penta (Night Dreamer)

From one flautist to another. In fact, Ronald Snijders is a multi-instrumentalist, but it’s the flute in particular that’s highlighted throughout his new album, recorded direct-to-disc. Snijders is a Dutch-Surinamese musician and we don’t have too many of them in these pages. He’s a jazz heavyweight in his own kingdom(s) and the four albums he released between 1977 and 1983 have become fusion classics in the Netherlands. Both he and his father, another celebrated musician, have been knighted there for their services to music in the House of Orange. Here, he and his quintet get the fonk outta ya face.

Hepcat/Scientist: Scientist Meets Hepcat: Scientific Dub Special (Trust Records)

Nor is it every day that we can feature a graduate of King Tubby’s Studios. Here’s Scientist’s take on an LA-based outfit’s take on classic Jamaican ska, rocksteady, reggae and such like. The late Greg Lee of Hepcat thought that it would be very cool if Hopeton Brown, the studio engineer better known as Scientist, would dub the band’s sophomore album from 1996, Scientific. And so it came to pass – just before Lee tragically died of a brain aneurysm early last year. The limited-edition vinyl version sold out in an hour, I’m told.

Nyron Higor: Nyron Higor (Far Out Recordings)

It may be a trifle too soon to announce that a new Brazilian star is born, but the singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist from Maceió in Brazil’s North-east shows signs of being another next big thing. It’s no coincidence either that, among other guests, he collaborated on his eponymous album with fellow Maceioense artists, Bruno Berle and Batata Boy. There’s a light touch and almost throwaway quality to some of the music, probably reflecting the album’s creation at his home. It’s dreamy, melodic, full of variety and altogether exudes promise.

Violeta Parra: Las Últimas Composiciones De(Vampisoul)

According to Rolling Stone, the last songs of Violeta Parra represent the best Chilean album of all time. Well, Vampisoul have re-mastered the 14 last songs originally issued in 1966, so we can make our own minds up. The songs have a very dramatic quality, the vocals are certainly very strong and there’s some fine percussion and acoustic guitar-playing throughout, but Rolling Stone was given to hyperbole.

107^th Street Stickball Team: Saboreando – Pot Full of Soul (Vampisoul)

Lingering awhile in Madrid, here’s a full album from one of the obscure bands that featured on the compilation of Bobby Marín productions, We’ve Got A Groovy Thing Going. Despite the presence of top-notch musicians like drummer Bernard “Pretty” Purdie, one can’t escape the conclusion that Vampisoul’s in-house selector, DJ Bongohead, chose the best of the tracks for the earlier compilation.

PulciPerla: Tatekieto (Prado Records)

PulciPerla represents the marriage between the high-energy quartet from Toulouse, Pulcinella, and the all-female vocal-and-percussion group from Bogotá, La Perla. Together they make a joyful noise, typified by the single here. The broadly unclassifiable music is every bit as much fun as the video.

João Selva: Onda (Underdog Records)

While in France… Here’s the latest album from the boy from Ipanema, whose creative relationship with producer Bruno Patchworks has now yielded four albums since its inception in 2016: Natureza (2017), Navegar (2021), Passarinho (2023) and now Onda. It’s the same mélange of samba, Cape Verdean funaná, Caribbean zouk, Congolese rumba and good old American funk, all dressed up in a cloak of contemporary MPB. That said, though, the melodies seem just a little bit stronger and the up-tempo numbers that bit more infectious, which suggests that Onda is the best yet from the minstrel out-stationed in Lyon.

Matachindé: Morir Cantando (Palenque Records)

Founded in 2010 with the aim of enriching and promoting the traditional music of Colombia’s Yurumanguí river area, Matachindé are more of a community than a group: a core of 13 singers and musicians that expands to as many as 17 members. Named after the colourful celebrations that take place during Holy Week, Matachindé have won prizes at local and national events and festivals for their music: hypnotic call-and-response choral vocals with heavy percussion and sparkling marimbas. Wonderful invigorating music.

Various Artists: Chicha Por Favor Vol. 1, Grooves from El Volcán: The Heartbeat of Peruvian Cumbia (Ritmo Del Barrio)

I’ve known snappier album titles in my time, but am not about to send a complaint to this worthy independent label based in London. Having collaborated with other Peruvian labels since starting up in 2021, Ritmo Del Barrio here offer the first of a projected series of grooves from the El Volcán label, a beacon for cumbia in the Peruvian Andes and beyond. The 10 songs focus on small guitar-centric combos of the time that seemed to specialise in melding traditional Andean sounds with Afro-Caribbean rhythms and American rock. The results are suitably quirky.

Los Kenya: Los Kenya Vol. 2 (Vampisoul)

And so at last to Venezuela – via Vampisoul. I must have missed Vol. 1, but the follow-up volume of 10 numbers strongly suggests that I should search for it. Los Kenya were a group led by pianist, Ray “El Loco” Pérez. With twin trumpets and a pair of vocalists, his was a small combo with a big, urgent sound, which specialised in salsa dura and boogaloo. The pace barely flags for a minute and the music is right up there with anything similar during that epoch from Colombia or Peru.

There I must leave you. The lunch hour approaches and there’s only so much new music that you can listen to on an empty stomach. Until February…

Cover photo of Hepcat courtesy of Jiro Schneider.

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