Prezident Markon’s New Singles Round-Up (Caixa Cubo, Rogê, Miramar, Julián Mayorga, Maria Luana, Frente Cumbiero and more)
12 October, 2024What became of summer? We seem to have segued without notice into autumn. Time marches on! as the voice-over in Citizen Kane reminded us. So let’s get down to business…
¿Quiensave? x El Dusty feat. Boogát: “High Class”
We’ll start with a bang – in the form of the final single from nu-cumbia DJ El Dusty’s remix collaboration with the Mex-American (very) high-energy group from Salinas, California. Boogát is a Mexi-nadian (perhaps) musician from Quebec City, but I can’t tell you exactly what his contribution here is. El Dusty, from the borderlands of south Texas, has taken six numbers from the band’s back catalogue and revved up the BPMs for an album due later this month with the appropriate title of Reanimación. They’ll be hitting the road together in support of the album and the band have promised a show “full of energy, movement and surprises.” I don’t doubt it.
Rogê: “A Rã”
While in California, here’s the expatriate Brazilian singer-songwriter with the remarkable knack of sounding as if he were recording in the golden age of Tropicaliá. Here he is with a very nice version of one of my fave-raves, João Donato and Caetano Veloso’s “A Rã” (The Frog). The single’s taken from the November release of Curyman II, and if it’s as good as the first Curyman album, I’ll be a happy fellow. Rogê met the song’s writers in L.A. and Veloso apparently told him “that version you played was amazing. I loved your style and your guitar playing.”
Caixa Cubo: “Modo Aviao”
Also slated for November is the second album from the trio from São Paulo who seem to be following in the musical footsteps of Azymuth, so it’s appropriate that they’ve hooked up with Far Out Recordings. I loved 2023’s Agora and its successor appears to offer more of the same quietly engrossing jazz-fusion. They’ve been playing together for over 14 years and you can witness the chemistry at work here on a live version of the album’s title track, out now as a single. The trio will be appearing at the good old 100 Club in London on the 1st November as part of a wide-ranging European tour. The album follows on the 15th of that month.
Los Pakines: “Venus”
The latest Analog Africa trawl around the dusty corners of Latin America comes out on the same day. Entitled Super Disco Pirata – De Tepito Para El Mundo 1965-1980 – yes, quite a mouthful – it illuminates the world of pirated bootleg sounds mainly from Colombia that were broadcast by sonideros‘ sound systems to audiences around the barrios of Mexico City eager to dance their troubles away. This latest single from the album gives you an idea of how good and how infectious these sounds were and are.
Miramar: “Un Astro”
By way of complete contrast, here’s a gem from a new band on the books of Ansonia Records. Their retro-tastic string-driven take on the bolero sound of the late ’60s reminds me a little of France’s Plaza Francia Orchestra, a spin-off from Gotan Project. Similarly, Miramar is a bit of a spin-off from that excellent American salsa band, Bio Ritmo – in the form of Puerto Rican musician, composer and vocalist Rei Álvarez and keyboard player and arranger, Marlysse Rose Simmons-Argandoña. The two of them previously performed with the other vocalist here, Laura Ann Singh, in the Brazilian band, Os Magrelos. The single celebrates the birth of the Bio Ritmo couple’s son, Desi. Watch this space for sure.
The Bongo Hop ft. Kephny Eliacin: “Dekonekte”
I know. I featured the France-based group with Colombian connections last month, but I shan’t apologise because this second single from the album, La Pata Coja, is a treat. It features the Haitian singer, Kephny Eliacin, whose lovely lead vocal summons up the musical ghosts of his troubled nation in a song about the hardships of being an expatriate in Paris, dreaming of making music while getting through his early shift at the market.
João Selva ft. Gabi Hartmann: “Rainbow Love”
Sticking around the Underdog Records HQ in Lyon (I believe), here’s a charming single by their expatriate Brazilian main man, João Selva, in the company this time of French vocalist, Gabi Hartmann. Inevitably arranged and produced by the ubiquitous Bruno Patchworks, it presages a promising new album from our Mr. Selva scheduled for sometime next year.
Julián Mayorga: “No te comas las blanquísmas mofeta”
Another expat now, this one from Colombia and based for the last 10 years in Madrid. His music suggests that he’s been to Barcelona a few times to look at Gaudi’s architecture: it’s wacky, gaudy and quite off-the-wall – which is no doubt why he has been picked up by Glitterbeat. Having listened to the album, Chak Chak Chak Chak, also out on the 15th November, his off-kilter approach gets a little wearing and self-conscious at times, but there’s no denying that he’s an artist to be reckoned with. Shades of the good Captain Beefheart, Tom Zé, Tom Waits and others of that musical kidney abound – as you can hear on the album’s opener and memorable first single. Radio Dada…
Maria Luana: “Balsámo”
It’s a little while after its release and I know very little about the artist, but Maria Luana has a fine voice that deserves to be heard. This is part of a three-track EP by this Uruguayan artist based in Brazil, who has signed for the Pequeno Imprevisto label run by a very interesting Bath-based Brazilian journalist, music curator and creator of the newsletter, Distante. He also happens to be the artistic director of the show Lua Rosa, in which Brazilian musicians perform the songs of Nick Drake. Now that I would very much like to hear, but this will certainly suffice for now.
Egle Martin: “El Dombe”
A name surely to conjure with. Ms. Martin was or is an Argentinean actress, dancer and singer and this exuberant single, originally released in 1970, has been re-released by Vampisoul. The original slice of vinyl is apparently collectible and, I’d imagine, rather rare. Listening to it conjures up visions of an obscure version of Bob Fosse’s All That Jazz shot in and around Buenos Aires. Anyone know of such a creation?
Carlos Cavallini: “Um Milhão”
Here’s the latest single from the Brazilian singer-songwriter based in Lisbon, who has featured here before – if my memory serves me well. His album O Tamanho do Tempo was produced by his fellow transplanted Brazilians, Ricardo Dias Gomes and Domenico Lancellotti. The single is in a similar nu-MPB vein and very tasteful.
Las Palabras: “Escudo y Espada”
Taken from yet another November 15th release – in this case the sophomore album, Fe, of this interesting character, Rafael Cohen, born in Mexico of Jewish atheist parents from Guatemala – the second single is “a song about putting down your defences and allowing yourself an openness to the idea of faith.” The multi-instrumentalist and long-time member of the tricky-to-pronounce !!! recorded this in his home studio in Brooklyn. There’s all kinds of things going on, which is maybe not surprising given that he studied jazz as an “experimental” oboist before shifting towards (Latin) dance music.
Los K’Comxtles: “Ojos de Araña”
The band with another fairly unpronounceable name (to us tongue-tied westerners, anyway) is a band made up of Mexican rock legends and their new single is their reinterpretation of a classic by Los Sleepers from way back in the Sixties. Described as “as an act of love and respect for the roots of Mexican rock,” this new version is quite simply FAB. Give me more of those spider eyes!
Frente Cumbiero: “El Tereminé”
Listening to this slightly bonkers chunk of “cinematic” cumbia, it’s possible to detect shades of the slightly bonkers Japanese group, Minyo Crusaders, with whom these purveyors of what they call “Tropicanibal” collaborated back in 2020. The intergalactic sounds embedded within this extraordinary single (recorded in Buenos Aires) include that of the titular other-worldly theremin, as played by the Argentine Manuel Schaller. It’s the first taste of new material scheduled for next year, which could be very interesting.
Twanguero: “Pupilas” (with Alih Jey)
No apologies for suggesting another helping from Panamerica, the seventh album of Spanish-born, LA-based guitarist Diego Garcia and band. He describes it as “beautiful, like a ‘cumbia reposada’ – ‘cumbia chill’ or ‘cumbia Western’.” Whatever you want to call it, the single sounds as if it’s a direct response to “El Tereminé”: calm, restful, restorative. Talking of Westerns, the video was shot in California’s Mojave Desert.
Caloncho: “Popango”
Here’s something sweet to finish with. Actually, it’s both dessert and cheese course combined. But good cheese: like a soft goat’s cheese impregnated with honey. (Believe me, it works!) It comes from a deluxe version of his latest album I’m told, fetchingly entitled Tofu and out in December. It’s a love letter to anyone who’s ever been in love and the video shows our modern-day minstrel singing his song around Tulum, Mexico, as if serenading his own true love.
Inevitably – and regrettably – I will have missed a few new singles, but that’s me done. My fingers are worn to the bone from typing. Time next, if I can find the time what with all the affairs of state, for some albums. It’s all go! You might wonder whether I had better things to do with my time.
(Cover photo of Miramar by Chris Smith)
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