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NPR Announcer
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Felix Contreras
From npr music, this is alt latino. I'm felix contreras.
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Ana Maria Sayer
And I'm ana maria sayer. Let the chisme begin.
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Felix Contreras
Okay, new music this week, Anna. So let's do Rock, Paper, Scissors to see who goes first.
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Ana Maria Sayer
Okay. But here's the thing about us doing rock, paper, scissors, Felix. What do you rock, paper, scissor, or do you rock, paper, scissors and then go. It's another beat.
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Felix Contreras
I do it in threes. Boom, boom, boom.
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Ana Maria Sayer
Oh, beautiful. Then we're compatible. Rock, paper, scissors. Ers. Okay, ready? Rock, paper, scissors.
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Felix Contreras
I have rock.
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Ana Maria Sayer
I had scissors, I think.
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Felix Contreras
Okay, I'll go first. And I'm excited. Okay. I've been sitting on this first track for. For a while. It's a compilation of field recordings from Salvador, Brazil, from 1980. The album's called Sacred Rhythms of Brazil. And it's like part of the record is all traditional field recording stuff. The rest of the record is like all of these great remixes and reimaginings of these rhythms, but with electronics and stuff. And what I'm going to do is I'm going to play the traditional music first and then an electronic track. But first, here's the traditional. This is Ogun Feste de Jango from the album Sacred Rhythms of Brazil. And now I'm going to play another track. It's a very percussive remix of a completely different song. And it's from the bailiffant D.J. sandrino, who's based in Rio. Check this out. It's called Aluja de Lanza.
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Ana Maria Sayer
There was a project I found a couple years ago, Felix, that was like a very similar. I don't know what you'd call it, experiment or expansion on rather and it. Except it was from old recordings from Vietnam. And there's something really interesting about. I always find about replacing some of these beats with electronic beats and seeing how they sit. It's like a very different shift, I think, in like where you feel the rhythm. Like if you replace it with an electronic beat, like, where does it start to sit? And it sits. I think it makes you dance in a different way. It makes you feel in a different way. And. But there's something really, like, structured and really like sound about an electronic beat that comes from a rhythm like that to begin with, because it's these rhythms, they can Stand the test of time. I mean, these beats are like, really profoundly moving beats. And so I love to hear an electronic beat that is constructed out of something that was initially, like, super raw and acoustic.
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Felix Contreras
Yeah. And, you know, and there are a lot of people who are like, no, you can't touch that stuff. Leave it alone. It just don't even bother trying to remix it. You just leave the music stands on its own. You know, there's merits to both, you know, the very, very strict traditionalist very versus these people who are doing these remixes. I'm kind of leaning toward the remix crowd, obviously. The album's called Sacred Rhythms of Brazil. We heard a couple of different tracks from the album. Just go out and find the whole thing. It's really, really good.
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Ana Maria Sayer
Okay, Felix, if you're gonna take us to Brazil, I have to defend my honor, maintain my brand. I'm gonna take us or keep us, rather, in Brazil. I'm skipping ahead to an album that I just discovered, and I don't know how I hadn't found it previously. It's absolutely stunning. It's by a Brazilian artist named Itayo. I hope I'm saying that right. The album is called Catatao. It's his fourth studio album. And this song in particular is called Da Barria.
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NPR Announcer
The.
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Felix Contreras
Kid
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Ana Maria Sayer
I fall.
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Felix Contreras
The kid
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Ana Maria Sayer
I found the kid I found the.
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Felix Contreras
Get out.
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Ana Maria Sayer
Can we play the next song, please? And here's the next one. Geneiro. So I had to play you. That is how he intros the album. And I've been. You know, Felix, I mean, there's a lot of things here. One Brazilian summer, but two I've been really loving. I don't often bring them, but I'm a really big fan of intros and outros on albums and then how people decide to kind of. It's so important and it's so beautiful. Like the way that people decide to set up a record. And that first kind of those first few notes, that first tone, the first. You know, it's really a space where people play. And I've noticed on a lot of these Brazilian records, I think what I love about them is they leave a lot of room for space and stillness and experimentation and doing the cool little jazz riff for a second, just cause.
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NPR Announcer
Yeah.
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Ana Maria Sayer
And that is such a lost art in so many albums that I hear that I just love. It is one of the best pieces of the art of the album. Like, take the space to play and set a tone. And I mean, this artist, he's spectacular. Like, he really. Beyond the sound which is this really cool mix of, like, jazz and samba and MPB and all. All of that. There's this beautiful poetry to Tu Itayo and how he writes. I want to play you a bit of another song that I'm absolutely obsessed with. It's called Drive My Car Parentheses Pra Marina. Napaj. I heard this song and I read the lyrics, and I was like, I'm starting Portuguese class today because I need to be able to experience it. You can tell, like, the tone, the energy, you know, you're hearing something beautiful. But I'm going to read you how they start that song. Everything that's abundant in you reaches me gently in the voice of astonishment. In the piece of a song from the abysses of the soul, it runs in love. The direction, the wrong way, the fear, the morning light, the blackness of the night and the earthquakes of form.
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Felix Contreras
Wow.
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Ana Maria Sayer
You knew they were saying that. You knew they were saying that.
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Felix Contreras
And the other thing that knocked me out, too is, like, the horn arrangements. The flute. I think there's a flute, there's a clarinet. I mean, there's a small little wind ensemble. And then once the rhythm comes in, the drummer's playing with brushes like a jazz player. Or like the old bossa nova bands used to play with brushes on drums and even phone books to get that soft, soft, shh. Like, velvety sound. That's what stood out to me on these. On the. On this track, man. It's just. Oh, my gosh.
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Ana Maria Sayer
It's so, like, effortlessly brilliant. Like, it's so soft and it's sparse, and every choice feels really intentional. I can't. I know I bring Brazilian music every week, but it's like, I can't. How are they so good? That was a couple of songs off the Tayo album, Kat.
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Felix Contreras
Okay, I'm going to change up just a little bit. Still some very, very brilliant music making. Here I found the kind of artist who I like to call a sound alchemist. Like, they're creating these soundscapes with so many different textures and influences with electronics, the kind. It's the kind of music that allows your imagination to participate and you can actually shape what you're hearing while you're hearing it. This is the New York City based Mexican American artist, DJ producer. Her name is Debit. She has an album out right now called Potpourri. This track is called Better like.
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NPR Promo Announcer
It?
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Ana Maria Sayer
Okay, Felix. Okay, go ahead, Nal. Go you, please. Why did you bring in this truck?
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Felix Contreras
Okay, so, I mean, I wrote in my notes, like, why didn't I know of her before. And I think she's primarily a dance dj. She's working in dance clubs. She's doing DJ stuff all over the world, really. She's based in New York and she does all this stuff. There's a lot of tracks on the record that I could hear Burning up the Dance Floor, but she also does this stuff. It's exactly like the electronic creativity that for me goes back to the earliest days of electronic and ambient music. 60s, 70s. For me, it reminds me of bands like the Art Ensemble of Chicago, this avant garde jazz band. Like, lots of sound, just textures. And also, believe it or not, the Grateful Dead, when they would do their space part where they would play with all these MIDI instruments and make all these different sounds and stuff. I want to play one more track. This is called I Didn't Ask to Be Born Latina. And that's just one word. Okay, but check this out, man. Okay. It just goes on and on like that, right? And. And to me, when I was listening to this, I looked at the title. I Didn't Ask to Be Born Latina. Again, one word. It's very clever. But to me, that track, it's like there's a sense of. Of angst and apprehension. It's just in the way that she builds and maybe the key or I don't know what it is, the way she builds that. That. That electronic sound, like we're waiting for something else to happen. And when you consider a song title, I don't know, man, maybe I'm misinterpreted, but like I said, it's. This kind of music is the kind of stuff that you can. Your imagination plays a part in how you perceive the music, and that's how I perceived it.
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Ana Maria Sayer
Does it feel like jazz to you?
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Felix Contreras
You know, jazz. We'd have to do a whole other podcast, but. But it feels like avant garde jazz. And like I said, there are a number of artists that I used to listen to and still listen to that just. They didn't play melody. It was just sound and texture and beeps and squeaks and like, no structure, like we're used to hearing. And it was still incredibly popular, and I really, really liked it. And she falls in like a modern version of that. Like a modern version of these avant garde jazz guys. But. But using electronics, that's what it feels like.
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Ana Maria Sayer
I think of it. Think of how jazz builds in such a way as you're describing her. Like, jazz builds with tension, with angst, with all these things. But this is a really random comparison. But I was listening to a bunch of Bill Ovens over the weekend, and I kept listening to this song where he builds and builds and builds and builds and builds and builds. And there's something about it that feels really reminiscent of that in the most random and obviously instrumentally distant way. But something about, yeah, constructing in the way that you're describing feels jazz to me. I don't know.
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Felix Contreras
I would have never connected it to Bill Evans. But, you know, like I said, this music allows you to use your imagination to be part of it. When you mention it, I can hear, I can hear a comparison. The artist is named Debit. The album is called Potpourri. We heard Pero like, and I didn't ask to be born Latina. I'm definitely going to be checking more of her music out. We're going to take a break and we'll be back with lots more new music.
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- [17:23]
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- [18:07]
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Felix Contreras
And we're back. No, you go, you go.
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Ana Maria Sayer
I'm bringing us back. And we're back. And we're back. And we're in Spain. And I will be in Spain for the rest of this episode. Okay, I found this band. They're called Calequi y Las Panteras And I'm gonna play you a song called Si te aleja de la mor no puedes serbueno. And it's from their new album, Press.
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Felix Contreras
To Kuloto.
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Ana Maria Sayer
I mean, how confused was I when I said this Caribbean band, question mark with Spanish accents. No, they're just from Spain. But I mean Caribbean. All Caribbean. All Caribbean, experimental Caribbean. Every type of Caribbean. I mean, the transitions, everything. It's clever, it's funny, it's interesting. It's what I've talked about, about this play space that I. I mean, I see a lot in Spain. And again, I've addressed this a number of times. Like what that means that they play with Caribbean sounds. But it's really like what they're doing is so fascinating and hooky and it blends rhythms in a way that I think people from the place would never necessarily think to. In the same way, because it's external. It's from afo. They're playing from the outside. And I want to play you then another song from the record because it sounds so different,
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Felix Contreras
Very versatile. Okay. Because at the start of the first track you played there was an Afro Cuban Wawanco. And then they built on that. And then this one has a whole mixture of stuff and listening on earbuds or headphones. All of these different, different beats and instruments are ping ponging from all different parts of the mix.
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Ana Maria Sayer
Like they bring it forward, they pull it back, they dip it under. Like it's all also played with in how they balance out the mix. It's really interesting. It's really interesting. The whole album is like that. It's ping pong, ping pong, ping pong, ping pong, ping pong, ping pong. And that doesn't always work, but they have a really nice flow to them. I thought they were Puerto Rican at first, actually. Honestly, it was kind of my impression. I was like, oh, this feels like experimental boricua stuff. Fascinating.
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Felix Contreras
Nice. Nice call. Good one.
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Ana Maria Sayer
That was a couple of songs off of the album Tres by the band Callequi y las Panteras.
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Felix Contreras
You know, Ana, it's funny that the track you played on that last artist started with a Wawenco, because I have the same thing. I have another track that features an Afro Cuban Wawanco. This is Carolina Olivero. She's the lead vocalist of the group Combo Chimbite, an all Latino favorite. We played a lot of their music. She has a new solo single coming out at the end of the month. We're going to give you a preview. This track is called Oye Camina, this is Carolina Oliveros. Check it out. What do you think?
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Ana Maria Sayer
No, she has that kind of voice, the kind that. That. That channel. And that's. That's the most important thing here. I mean, the percussion is cool and. And I've seen her play in. In various environments as well. For example, I saw her play in. In Puerto Rico once with Combo Chimbita. And it's rare to connect with a Puerto Rican crowd. Being their Colombian, her. She being Colombian in such a way. But I think she has like a connective tissue voice. Like, she has the kind of voice that if you come from any. Also because it's very attached to the percussion, if you come from any kind of like, deeply moving, percussive background origin culture, you're gonna then gravitate, I think, towards her voice.
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Felix Contreras
Yeah. You know, that's so funny because I totally agree with you. You know, when you're singing this kind of music, especially the Afro Cuban stuff, Daimea Rosena, the young women in Okan, they can use the wanwanko. And. And you gotta really be on top of it, like Senor Cross, you got to have that voice. It's got to be there. You can't get lost in the mix because there's all of this percussion stuff going on, all this drumming, all the sticks and everything else. And you're right, Carolina Oliveros has that kind of voice that's adaptable to the stuff that she does from her native Colombia, she's from Barranquilla, and all kinds of different stuff that this band does. And then on her new solo project, I don't know that there's a record coming out, a full album coming out at some point.
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Ana Maria Sayer
Point.
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Felix Contreras
I'm sure there is, but this single right now is just. I guess I could spend the rest of the show talking about what people do with Wawanco, with the Afro Cuban folklore. Roomba Wawanco. Like what they're doing with this one, these conga players, everybody that's on this track. Amazing. The track is called Oya Camina, and the artist is Carolina Oliveiros, and it's coming out at the end of July. We're giving you a sneak preview here.
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NPR Announcer
Ooh.
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Felix Contreras
Okay. Anna, take us home.
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Ana Maria Sayer
Wow, already? Okay. I'm keeping us in Spain. Interestingly, what I'm about to play is maybe a mix of a number of things we've heard today. It's like, I knew it would be the perfect finale, and yet I didn't, But I did anyways. This is artist Blaia from Barcelona. The album is called you'd Lesbian Neighbor is playing Music Next Door. And the song I'm gonna play first is and La Luna.
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Felix Contreras
Wow, Very nice. Tell me more about them. I like these guys a lot.
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Ana Maria Sayer
You know, there's a lot of things in here that I hear that are very similar to like a Ralphie Chu or Rosalskia, like all these Rusia IDK folks in Madrid that I've talked about a lot stylistically, production wise, that, that I hear she's in Barcelona, which I found really interesting because in Barcelona, what you usually get is the more like singer songwritery quality or like the Rita Paes jazz or the Sylvia Perez Cruz. It's a much smaller indie kind of like guitar and voice, voice leaning scene. But she is doing the Madrid thing and more than the Madrid thing, the, the experimental Spanish thing. And, and I really like, felt like it was a nice marriage with her vocal, which still has that kind of like singer, songwriter equality. But she wasn't afraid to really experiment production wise. I want to play you another track. It's called Tukara Mommy. Do you see what I mean about it being a mix of everything we heard today? In a way?
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Felix Contreras
Totally.
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Ana Maria Sayer
Because she does, she does really go pretty electronic on something. She goes, goes pretty like American on other things, too, in a way. There's like a little bit of the American electronic tone to it. But ultimately, I mean, it's just a play album to me. There's a lot of play in the dance space and then the songwriting space. So I don't know, she just makes me really curious, honestly, like, I didn't expect this kind of music out of Barcelona specifically. And clearly the scene there is growing. And so I'm excited to hear what she does next. That was a couple of songs from the Spanish artist Blaya, and her album, you, Lesbian Neighbor is playing Music Next Door.
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Felix Contreras
Great album title.
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Ana Maria Sayer
Great album title.
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Felix Contreras
You have been listening to All Latino from NPR Music. Our audio editor is Noah Caldwell.
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Ana Maria Sayer
The executive producer of NPR Music is
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Felix Contreras
Soraya Muhammad, Executive director, Sonali Mehta and as always, drop us a line if you heard something that you liked, you didn't like. If you just have a question or you want to turn us on to music, drop us a line@altlatinopr.org I'm Felix Contreras.
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Ana Maria Sayer
And I'm Ana Maria Sere. Thanks for listening.
- [31:11]
NPR Promo Announcer
We've just marked one year since Congress voted to eliminate federal funding for public media. NPR remains committed to informing the public. But a free press doesn't just happen. It's something we need to protect without federal funding. We are relying on your support. Now, please show your support before the end of the month. Visit plus.NPR.org this season on Planet Money Summer School. We go to China, one of the world's biggest economies, and what we learned
- [31:39]
Felix Contreras
is Americans are crazy, Chinese are crazy. These are two countries full of these crazy hustlers.
- [31:45]
NPR Promo Announcer
The US And China are more alike than you might think. On Planet Money Summer School, a strange lesson about success, how to handle the downsides of progress. Listen on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.