Tags: Latin disco

Review: Mushroom Pillow is on a proud and so far successful mission to bring back Latin American music from the 60s-80s via its Relatin project. it's all about mixing up the traditional and the modern and putting fresh spins on what went before. Many of the originals they look to have gone unnoticed the first time round and that's the case here as Franc Moody adds his own twist to Elia & Elizabeth's 'Alegria.' His remix is a sympathetic one that gets the hips swinging over fat and funky disco bass and beneath the sunny Latin vocals. He strips them away on the instrumental version on the flip.

Review: Hot on the heels of this one first being reissued back in May, it now gets a second run courtesy of Disques Messager out of France. Cristina Camargo's 'Moral Tem Hora' was one of the standouts from the super Brazilian Disco Boogie Sounds (1978 - 1982: selected by Junior Santos) compilation. It's a perfect fusion of Latin flair, Brazilian disco and jazz funk magic that has fat bass riffs and lots of bright chords and busy percussion next to a classic vocal. On the flip things get slower, sentimental and all loved up on 'Minas Do Rei Salomao' which his a perfectly steamy jam for those hot afternoons under the sun.

Review: The new album by Quantic - aka. multi instrumentalist, DJ, composer and producer Will Holland - is in many ways an evolution. Now twenty years into his career, Dancing While Falling is the British-born, New York-based artist's most live sounding, euphoric and, in his own words, grown-up release to date. Capturing the beginnings of every good person's revelatory movement from an individual to a collective spirit, Holland originally began the album in his Brooklyn studio, before realising that he didn't just want to make a record that reflected his 'singular pandemic wormhole', but rather one that tapped into the essential togetherness of the human condition. So too does this record explore themes of connection felt through, and made more intense by, the antagonistic bouts of loneliness that characterised COVID-19. Influenced by legendary artists in the scene like Bohannon and Larry Levan, Quantic wanted to make a disco -eaning album at first; "I'm really interested in Latin music and Afro Caribbean rhythms and I think there's a really amazing point in history where the emergence of those rhythms and its combination with American soul sparked what we now know as disco," he says. This PIAS extended edition comes one year on from its initial 2023 release, Quantic here expands on his work by adding a ream of extended versions.

Review: Candido Camero is credited by the label Real Gone as the man "who basically brought the conga into the modern age", with his "innovative multi-percussion setups and tunable congas" raising the bar for those seeking an example of international music done right. Widely known for his elaborate one-man band apparatus - a combination of his own patented tunable conga with bongos, guiro, and foot-operated cowbell - Candido is unsurprisingly candid about his pioneering invention of the multi-percussion setup. 'Dancin' And Prancin'' hails from Camero's disco spate - a long time after which he'd already established a foothold in the contemporary jazz and soul worlds as a player in the bands of Dizzy Gillespie and Billy Taylor, to name a few. Well into his career, at the age of 58, 'Dancin' And Prancin'' nonetheless refuses to forgo the raw, easygoing follies of youth, with authentic and raw rhythms brought to a no less sprightly, spritzy vocal number.

Review: Curated by David 'Mr Bongo' Buttle and Gareth Stephens, with additional picks from Gary Johnson, Ville Marttila, and Graham Luckhurst, Volume Two of this much loved Mr Bongo series finally gets a reissue after proving so popular first time round. It continues the vibe of its predecessor by offering a deeper selection of soul and disco tracks that Mr Bongo associates have been spinning in their DJ sets and radio show. Standout tracks from artists like Dee Edwards, Leny Andrade, Rosa Maria, The Equatics, Elbernita 'Twinkie' Clark and The Beaters make this a real must have.

Review: Buh Records reissues Rollets' classic self-titled album here as it was a key moment in Peruvian disco history that first arrived in 1981. Only emerging themselves a year before, Rollets blended disco, boogie and pop and caught a pivotal moment in Lima's music scene during the democratic transition. Their hit 'Patinando' gave them national recognition, but their album features a range of sophisticated tracks from disco anthems to boogie with soft rock influences. The band was led by Manuel and Saul Cornejo and helped shape the rise of Peruvian disco and influenced later groups like Grupo America and Los Roller's de Tarapoto, so this is a real treasure.