Fresquecito
¡más fresca que nunca!

Now that I've had Revé's latest in the ipod for a couple of weeks - and played it pretty much constantly whenever I have left the house - I feel better equipped to talk a bit more about it.
I'm still going with A sancochar boniato as the stand-out (click on the box at right to hear it).

One of Revé's great tricks (and in fact, it's kind of sello of a lot of Cuban music), is the ability to go from woeful to woohoo! in seconds - or rather, to combine the two: A sancochar boniato (it means "to parboil sweet potato"; but I suspect it also means "let's party") has wonderfully lachrymose violins married to the invigorating changüi rhythm and overlaid with lyrics about a fiesta. The music is outstanding, but the lyrics are terrific fun too - non-Latin music has plenty of lyrics about partying - there must be a million songs with "Saturday night" in the title, but they rarely go into as much detail as this:

El 31 de diciembre (The 31st of December)
Me invitaron a una fiesta (I was invited to a party)
La cena del fin de año (A new year's eve dinner)
En casa de los Revé (At the Revés' house)

After giving time, location and the reason for the party, the singer tells us there was barbecued pork, sweet potato, bacalao (a kind of fish) and bread. Everyone had a swell time, changüisando (jaja) but there was trouble when the singer got home:

Cuando yo llegué a mi casa (When I got home)
Mi mujer estaba brava (My wife was mad)
Venía pidiendo comida (She came asking for food)
Y ya no quedaba nada (But none remained)

then:

Y no quedó nadita (And nothing at all was left)
Ni una cachitico pa' huele (Not even a skerrick to smell)

This is too much fun.

The other songs on the album I have been thrashing are El jonrón, which I mentioned in the previous post, but also, Fresquecito.com - a terrific uptempo number with a lovely melody. Again, it has that melancholy vibe - at the beginning, at least - then it turns into a furious grindfest. Probably my second favourite on the album. Here they are doing it live, shot by Michelle from timba.com




The version of Ya no te doy más na' on the album is something of a disappointment. A demo of this song, featuring its composer El Nene in a brilliant vocal performance, had been around for some time. When El Nene left (he is now apparently fronting his own band in Cuba called El Nene y su Crazy Band), Elito got new vocalist Eric "El Chino" to rerecord it. It's a great song - it has a terrific melody in the verses - but I miss El Nene's spunky delivery and the fantastic scat that he stuck in the middle of it. Still this version is pretty good.

El Nene also wrote La Madrugada - another good song. This album is full of them. Probably easier to name the songs I don't like: top of the list is No le pegues con el pie. It's one of those tropical fusion rhythms and it's a bit too jaunty and provincial for me. I'm not a huge fan of very traditional music either, so Vamos a bailar el changüi isn't among my favourites, though it's far from being as annoying as the previous song. El martes, a Los Van Van song, is a pretty, elegant cha-cha-cha. Back in the música bailable category are: La viuda, El télefono and El dinero. These are all very solid songs, and most will probably get a work out at the Cuba night (December 28).
Fresquecito is a very, very, good album - I like it more than their last, Se sigue comentando. And that was pretty good, too.

As well as new Revé jnr, I've been dipping into some old stuff by his papa, in particular Aqui todo se resuelve from the album Suave Suave, a gorgeous smoothly flowing dance track; and also Manye pa' catalina, that goes back even further and has spine-tingling chord changes.
¡Viva los Revés!

Descarga links: Fresquecito; Suave Suave; [can't find a link for Manye pa Catalina - will upload it to the player when I get my shit together]

¡Fresquecito!

After torturing us for months and months with demos and live snippets, Elito Revé y su Charangón have finally released the follow-up to the monster dance album Se sigue comentando. Fresquecito has the brilliant, catchy, danceable Ya no te doy más na' and at least one other bonafide classic in A sancochar boniato: a song about sweet pototo and fish (superficially, at least!) that starts as a rip-roaring dance cut before the tempo is throttled for a slow, swingin' vibe. Others that stand out, after just a week or so are El jonrón ("cuando suena el Charangón - pa' fuera pa' la calle!"), an irresistible track about how, er, irresistible el Charangón is, featuring - appropriately - another the giant of the Cuban music scene, Robertón.

To listen to A sancochar boniato online, hit the player in the sidebar at the right.
To listen to it in your loungeroom/ipod, hit descarga.com

Samuell Formell on Los Van Van's new album



Just in case you couldn't be bothered downloading the almost 100mb file that is this week's Piso 6 from Mucho Swing, here is a short clip of the most salient part - yes I know some of you are just hanging to see Gardi's comical video to his tropical hit Tan mala que eres, but I think the majority are probably more interested in what Samuell Formell has to say about Los Van Van's forthcoming album. For those who don't speak Spanish the summary is this (please correct me in the comments if I'm wrong):

• It's called Arrasando
• It's produced by Samuell and Juan
• It has songs by Juan, Samuell, Ruben Blades and Cucurucho
• It has a guest appearance by Brasilian musician Ivan Lins
• They have a DVD coming out in about a month (possibly the one filmed last year at Teatro Karlo Marx, but he doesn't say)
• I couldn't get the rest

I have heard a song from the album, with Lelé on vocals, and it's a lot of fun - a slow, lurching groove propelled by violins and punctuated by the 'bones. Good stuff.

Last weekend was the last for Cuban entertainment in Sydney for a little while. Last Friday's Watershed was great, as usual - above is a pic of one of the happy DJs. Below are some of the happy dancers. There are more pics here.



On Saturday there was Armandito's Cuban night. It got off to a slow start: BJ's is now called the Copacabana, and is a dinner-show deal, with the show being Brazilian. I'm pretty sure I've already seen as much capoeira in my life as I want. The place looked very different - gone are the black walls and cement floor. Now it's all white and woodgrain vinyl flooring. After an eternity, the show finished and the DJ started playing a bit of Cuban mixed with some NY descargas (nice). Danced a bit (not to the descarga). Armandito came on and almost killed whatever vibe there was by starting with a bolero and following it up with two more slow songs. Also: every song went for 20 minutes.



Fortunately Yarima arrived with her troupe comprising Fraudy (with Yarima, above), Ricardo and a lovely looking lass whose name I don't know. They did three very entertaing dances spanning casino/rueda, cha-cha-cha, rumba and, er, pilón (to Armandito's "Sydney, Australia" pilón). They were really great: graceful, energetic, inspired. Bravo, dudes.


The next Cuban outing will be November 24, when Mi Tierra return to play at BJs, er Copacabana. Looking forward to seeing them - their awesome drummer Georgio is back from Peru, so they should be really kicking. It's election night. That arse Howard is sure to win again. So let's dance while Australia burns. Details here (on the gig, not the election).

¡Ayuda!

Can anyone identify this song? I have had some folk give some educated guesses but nobody has come up with anything concrete. Anyone? ... Anyone? ... Bueller?

Update: Rob in the Netherlands and DJ Charanga in Norway have informed me it is Nelson Manuel y su Corte, No me llames from their album Palabras. Thanks guys!