Artist: El Buho
Title:
Ramas
Label:
Wonderwheel
Released:
27th of March
Over
the years the Wonderwheel label has been a go to label for a variety
of world music fusions where the sounds of Latin and South America,
Africa and the Middle East meet hip-hop, funk, soul, reggae, house
and more. This latest release from El Buho is a prime example as it
features collaborations with 19 artists from 12 different countries adding their touches to his Andean and Cumbian compositions.
In addition to this El Buho rather than throwing out the usual fan
re-mix competition, asked for choreographers and dance groups in his
community to submit videos for the music and has incorporated 18 fan
created videos with original choreographed dances for visual
representation of the album. One of which is shown in the video for
‘Nevar’ below.
Moving
on to the music as I scanned the track list I noticed familiar names
such as label boss Nickodemus, Thornato and a few others. However,
their were many I wasn’t familiar with so in this review I will
focus on the highlights of the album after the initial opening track
‘Amanueces del Espirtu’. This piece a collaboration with
Dominique Hunziker placed my ears exactly where I anticipated, the
sound of the Andes brought to life with lovely guitar strings and
soothing vocals we are off to a good start.
Moving
forward I discovered the album is quite laid back and listenable such
as ‘Rumba Viento’ a collaboration with Captain Planet featuring
the vocals of Kata. Where as the first to really grab my attention
was ‘Sky City’ the collaboration with Thornato. Once again I
could picture the Andes in my minds eye, most probably helped by those pan
pipes. However, although this time it’s an instrumental piece
there is a little more emphasis with the kick drum. Whilst I can
imagine ‘A Minha Fraga (Re-mix)’ with Biauca could be somewhat of
a marmite test with the powerful male vocal and female choir like
accompaniment the music arrangement really appealed to me.
To
summarise I found I could easily listen to this album throughout
without skipping tracks. However, I would have liked a little more
variation on pace i.e. a few danceable numbers wouldn’t have gone
amiss. Nor would a collaboration with Lagartijendo one of my
favourites in this genre from the Wonderwheel catalogue.
Reviewed
by Woodzee
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