Nunca Tarde – a round-up of recent new albums (Troker, Fania All Stars, Superfónicos, Earthtones, BALTHVS and many more)
23 July, 2024With the Paris Olympics starting any day now, I’ll need to be on my toes to divert your attention. Here goes…
Troker: Tierra y Libertad (Self-released)
Mexican jazz blips across my radar screen but rarely. When it does, though, it’s usually demands careful consideration. Troker are no exceptions, and the album marks their 20th anniversary. They’re described as a “psychedelic jazz fusion band” and given the way they blend jazz with rock, psychedelia and mariachi, I would suggest that it’s fairly apt. Those other elements, particularly mariachi, can be quite startling and throw you off a more familiar path. At times it can be a little too quirky for its own good, but this is the risk you run with experimentation. They’re musically bold and distinctly different, and I’m happy to overlook the odd moment where it doesn’t quite gel because their 7th album is well worth exploring.
Superfónicos: Renaceré (Spaceflight Records)
We’ve been featuring the Texan-Columbians’ consistently fine singles for some time now on this site, so it’s no surprise to discover that their debut album is a good ‘un. I’d go so far as to say “damn fine!” The album title translates as “I will be reborn” as in the band’s explanation that “if we let love guide us, we will never die but rather be constantly reborn, and become part of the cycle.” The album was started four years ago at a particularly difficult time for (wo)man and beast, and it celebrates the resilience of the human spirit that has seen them through “the hard times in the last four years.” Guided by Grammy-winning guitarist, producer and engineer, Beto Martinez, there’s loads here to get your teeth into: from the Latin soul, say, of “Bogotá Boogaloo”, to the urgent Afro-funk of the title track and the psychedelic cumbia of the recent single, “La Verdad”. Aside from traditional Colombian instruments such as the gaita flute, they employ the bombardino (or euphonium) on several tracks, and the album exudes that kind of heft throughout.
Fania All Stars: Latin-Soul-Rock (Craft Latino Recordings)
There’s only one way to follow an album of such sonic magnitude and that’s with… Craft Latino’s loving reissue of a Fania classic from half a century ago. Long out of print, it has been re-mastered and re-issued in vinyl and digital form. It celebrates a somewhat abortive event at New York’s Yankee Stadium: a showcase designed to demonstrate that Latin musicians could play not just scorching salsa but also soul and rock. So the label’s roster of stars teamed up with guests such as Carlos’s brother Jorge Santana and the Lion of Africa, Manu Dibango, to show what they were capable of. No one, alas, told the predominantly Hispanic crowd that they needed to curb their enthusiasm. They went understandably nuts, spilled onto the playing area and the concert had to be stopped. Several tracks had to be re-recorded, so the sound is a little uneven, but the quality of music on display is second to none. The hysteria that greets the end of the final track, “Congo Bongo”, a duel between arguably the two greatest congueros of their age, Ray Barretto and Mongo Santamaria, says all you need to know about this treasure.
Gonzalo Rubalcaba and Hamilton de Holanda: Collab (Sony Music Brazil)
By way of complete contrast – and we all love a bit of contrast in our lives – here’s a new collaboration between the Cuban jazz pianist Gonzalo Rubalcaba and the celebrated Brazilian mandolin virtuoso, Hamilton de Holanda. I normally find the former a little too florid for my taste, but here he plays very taste-fully with considerable restraint, allowing the latter almost to dominate proceedings. With the mandolin so prominent, there’s inevitably a certain choro-meets-jazz feel to the project. It can be challenging at times, but it’s always exhilarating and there are magic moments throughout – such as this glorious version of Stevie Wonder’s “Don’t You Worry ‘Bout a Thing”, with the welcome addition of Gabriel Grossi’s harmonica. “Listening to the finished album, I feel a sense of gratitude for everything I experience in music and beyond,” de Holanda suggests. How sweet to be a virtuoso and how thrilling to have two complementing each other on one album.
Combo Daguerre: Fracassines (Barbès Records)
Olivier Conan is an interesting character. After moving from Paris to New York as a young man, he immersed himself in Latin music. As a musician, he is a founder of Chicha Libre, and as a producer he has worked for the likes of the Peruvian band, Los Wembler’s de Iquitos, whose “Lamento del Yacuruna” I used as a signature tune for a former radio show. Now Monsieur Conan’s francophone combo – named after rue Daguerre in his old Parisian stamping ground – has released its debut album, effectively a tribute to the arrondissement where he grew up. With the stamp of Chicha Libre’s brand of psychedelic cumbia to be heard on otherwise French songs redolent of chanson, ’60s rock in general and Serge Gainsbourg in particular, it’s a singular sound that’s both charming and quite original. I wrote in my review for Songlines that Conan sings and writes (in French) with the timbre and worldly wit of second-coming Leonard Cohen, and the album exudes a similarly sardonic sense of nostalgia for his youth and his home town. First he took Manhattan, then he took Paree – or the other way round.
Earthtones: We Can Live Together (Wonderwheel )
Here’s another “outsider” who has immersed himself in Latin music and culture. Earthtones is the nom de turntable of one Serge Bandura, a descendant of Ukrainian Jewish immigrants who started life in Boston, moved to LA and now bases himself in the wilder parts of California, where he teaches yoga and runs sound and wellness retreats. “I played jazz saxophone since I was 10,” he reveals. “When I started DJing, my love for cumbia, salsa etc. grew and grew, but it was Willie Colon from Fania that started me off. From there, Hector Lavoe, Celia Cruz and so on.” That tells you much about this compelling heterogeneous album, brimming with Afro-Latin sounds deriving from solid percussion and a host of golden guest vocalists, and all done up for the dance with deeply house-funky electronic rhythms. The title might appear to answer Timmy Thomas’ plaint of “why can’t we…?” and certainly reminds us that we are all in this life together if only we could recognise it. As electronic dance music goes, this is one of the best I’ve heard for some time.
Indus: Negra (ZZK Records)
And while on the subject… Here’s something remarkably complementary that derives from Colombia. Indus equals Barranquilla producer Óscar Alford along with a whole raft of compatriot collaborators and Negra is their second album. What it gains therefore in authenticity, it loses perhaps in variety. The emphasis is still on the dance, but the electronic element is more all-embracing despite Alford’s contention that the album represents a kind of confluence: “On the one hand there’s the traditional music of the coast and river areas; there are various maestros who collaborated on the record who brought that flavour; also there’s electronica which is a universal language…” I guess it is, but there are times when familiarity breeds a certain indifference. Nevertheless, there’s much to appreciate within the beats and pulses of Negra.
Litto Nebbia: Canciones Que No Quieren Morir (Vampisoul)
The Madrid-based label has unearthed another fascinating document of the past in this double LP compilation of rarities and better-known recordings that one of the giants of Argentine rock released between 1971 and 1988. During the period, the singer, multi-instrumentalist and co-founder of the Los Gatos combo, was exiled to Mexico by the dictatorship. Nebbia kept on producing music until his return to Argentina in 1982 and a long subsequent career, which featured umpteen albums and the founding of his own influential label, Melopea Records. The compilation embraces a wide variety of musical styles, some of which sound better to contemporary ears than others. Even so, this is never less than an intriguing and important release that underlines why Gilles Peterson and others of that kidney have purportedly expressed their admiration for this influential figure.
BALTHVS: HARVEST (Mixto Records)
Santiago Lizcano, Johanna Mercuriana and the truly splendidly-named Balthazar Aguirre play together as the unpronounceable and sometimes capitalised BALTHVS. Despite the lack of that second all-important vowel, the Colombian band’s recent singles have featured regularly on Sounds and Colours. The album confirms the promise and stylistic variety of three previous albums and 15 million streams. It was recorded during a month spent away from home base in Bogotá at a tropical summer house in La Mesa, Colombia, in the hope that they would be inspired by nature rather than the sterile environment of a recording studio. Despite the heat that apparently forced them to make the music in their underwear, the idea seems to have worked a treat. The bright, ringing guitar sound conjures up vivid images of sun, sea and sand and HARVEST could well prove to be one of the stand-out albums of 2024. Renowned for their live shows, the band have already racked up three US tours, and a fourth – to promote the album – is scheduled for August.
Rolando Bruno y el Grupo Arevalo: Cosas Raros (Peace & Rhythm, Electric Cowbell and DJ Cajon Records)
Cumbia trash, anyone? You bet ya socks! The baggy chap who looks a little like a younger Rickie Gervais – and who dances rather better – is none other than Rolando Bruno, whose infectious brand of Peruvian cumbia, punk, pop and everything else under the global sun (including here Dominican merengue), has captivated his native Argentina. There are shades of Olivier Conan’s aforementioned Chicha Libre and other outfits like Meridian Brothers and Acid Coco in the playful mash-up of genres that Bruno and his band serve up on this their third album since the leader conceived the project in his room in Buenos Aires with his “best friend”, the computer he dubbed his “Midi Orchestra”. He and his band have subsequently toured in Europe and made three visits to Japan, where I imagine that this gloriously cookie mélange of musical styles would go down like hot sushi.
As For The Future: As For The Future (As For The Future Music)
According to guitarist and singer-songwriter, David Nagler, this band or maybe collective of writers, musicians and singers is founded on the premise of creating new music inspired by the music of Brazil. Based in New York, the band that takes its name from a novel by the Brazilian writer Clarice Lispector was born during the locked-down days of the pandemic. Their debut album features 10 songs sung in English with distinct Brazilian feel and style, conjuring echoes of Chico Buarque, Gilberto Gil and all things MPB. Catchy, melodic and poppy, the result is not dissimilar to the music of Rio-based songster, Gary Corben – although arguably without his endearing lightness of touch. The band’s percussionist Mauro Refusco was music director of David Byrne’s American Utopia show throughout its Broadway run, and it’s not a big stretch to suggest that As For The Future share something of the Talking Head’s pan-American shtick. Here they are with a track performed live in Brooklyn.
Sr Ortegon: Cantina (Sonoton Music)
I can’t tell you much about this album, other than the fact that Sr Ortegon is none other than José Miguel Ortegón, a producer and composer hailing from Cali, Colombia. He has been nominated for a Latin Grammy and has won a prestigious Mark Award (nothing to do with me, I assure you, though I love the idea). The new album consists of 10 songs with seven bonus instrumental versions, which run the gamut from Mexican regional music to Colombian popular music via American Tejano and more. The world of Cantina conjures up a scene, probably imagined, from Peckinpah’s Pat Garrett and Billy The Kid, where James Coburn’s dusty, travel-weary, Kid-searching US marshal stumbles into a bar in the middle of the south-western desert. The heads of a few desultory drinkers turn to face him and the music stops abruptly… Well, listen to the album and I’m sure you’ll find your own scenario.
And there I think I’ll leave it for another month. I was fully intending to explore and tell you about the Chilean rapper NFX’s new album Bushido: Kenjutsu, but I’ve run out of steam. So I’ll leave you with this somewhat verbose single and let you make your own minds up whether to investigate or not. Happy August and ta ta for now.
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