El Pueblo

The cover image of El Pueblo’s new cd, a map of the Caribbean, pretty much says it all: they play just about every style of reggae ever invented, including some they can take credit for coming up with themselves. And they do it well: if their new album, Isla, is any indication, they could stretch pretty much all of these tracks out into mind-warping psychedelic dub. It’s a mix of instrumentals and vocal numbers in both Spanish and English, featuring Robert Julian’s skanking reverb guitar, Lucas Leto’s shuffling drums, Kevin Sherman’s tasteful bass and Jeremy Danneman’s warmly balmy alto sax along with guest Danny LoPresti’s bubbling organ on two tracks. For the instrumentals, the obvious comparison is the Augustus Pablo classic East of the River Nile, if you substitute sax for the melodica and take the energy level up about a hundred degrees. The songs are a strikingly original blend of roots reggae with edgy rock en Español tinges, frontman Chino Sing’s casual, laid-back presence a perfect match with the band.

The album opens with its most dub-flavored track, Babylon Is a Chain Gang, textures rising and falling out of the mix Lee “Scratch” Perry style – and then they suddenly come out of the smoky cloud with sunny sax. They follow it with the first of two chorus box-driven reggae-pop tunes and then Dejate Llevar, which is catchy and Marleyesque, like something off the Kaya album, with a sly wah-wah guitar solo. Cabarete sounds like a vintage Skatalites instrumental gone halfspeed, with Danneman’s low, sultry clarinet taking the lead. One of the best songs here is the workingman’s anthem Babylon System Slave: “Don’t talk to me about freedom,” Sing asserts, not with 40 hours of misery looming in the week ahead. The other is the absolutely gorgeous El Capata, a swinging, hypnotic, Americana-tinged ballad rich with jangly, clinking acoustic guitar textures. There’s also the title cut, a big, guitar-fueled reggae anthem, a couple of playful, fun dub-tinged instrumentals, the lively ska jam Tatica’s Town and the closing track, The Ocean, a thoughtful reggae-rock ballad with gentle waves of reverb guitar. What a fun summertime album. El Pueblo play Shrine uptown on 8/27 at 9 PM.
- Lucid Culture Blog

El Pueblo plays this Sunday at Rehab, but we got a piece of them first. Founding member Robert Julian and latest addition Chino Sing share a few random facts via email from their respective homes (Sing keeps it West Coast, while Julian sticks to the Bronx) and give us a deeper look inside their Dominican influenced roots/reggae music. Julian, who also plays with Caribbean rock band La Sovietka, began El Pueblo when he was just a college kid in Boston. He and friend Lucas Leto infused roots, reggae, jazz, Latin and dub into their effort while studying at Berklee College of Music in 2004. The result? Earnest ballad-like lyrics to beats you can’t help but groove to, and something they wish more New Yorkers were listening to. - nyremezcla.com

Many charity records have their hearts in the right place, but aren’t a hell of a lot of fun to listen to.

Oftentimes, they’re oddball collections of mediocre B-sides from well-known artists thrown together to aid one cause or another but don’t work well as an album you’d want to spend a solid hour listening to.

The new Funk Aid for Africa is an exception to this rule. While it doesn’t feature any household name artists, it features 20 soul, funk and Latin songs that mesh well together.

The Funk Aid project was put together by dubSpot, an electronic music production and DJ training institute in New York. It’s a hell of a lot of fun to listen to or just have playing in the background and the songs fit well together.

The album kicks off with Ocote Soul Sounds’ song, "Contra El Sol," which is a hypnotic electronic funk piece.

The second song, "High Steppin" by The Lions sounds like a great 70s soul instrumental with trumpets and playful guitar and bass lines. It could have been on the soundtrack of the original Shaft movie.

"San Francisco Bound," by The Pimps of Joytime sounds like a funky song by an all-black version of the Village People. J Boogie’s Dubtronic Science performs the sultry soul number "Together" with Jennifer Johns providing lead vocals.

The project was put together by Dan Giove, the founder of dubSpot, and DJ OBah as a fundraiser to benefit the L.A.-based humanitarian organization, NextAid, which assists AIDS orphans in Africa.

"Pasado Pisado" is a light Brazilian-inflected song by Dario Boente and Huge in Japan that’s reminiscent of the bossa nova songs of Gilberto Gill and Astrid Gilberto. Amayo’s Fu-Arkist-Ra’s "Fist of Flowers" is a bloated eight-minute song that gets old rather quickly. It’s one of the disc’s few misses.

All of the songs blend into the next, keeping the mood and party going from one tune to the next.

"Mi Sonsito" by Ticklah with Mayra Vega is a jerky, jazzy Latin number sung in Spanish that’s a lot of fun, as is Ursula Rucker’s "Electric Santeria" which sounds more like a conventional electronic dance track, but with Brazilian percussion.

Meta and the Cornerstone’s "Hasta La Vista" is a great reggae number with lots of bounce.

The album ends with El Pueblo’s "Ina Funky Dub" that’s heavy on the jazz guitar influences, but still retains a lot of world music flair.

The album is available on iTunes for $10, or can be ordered as a CD from funkaid.com. It could provide your beach house with a fun and funky soundtrack during the Summer of 2009.
- www.edgeBoston.com

Various artists (DubSpot Records)
Funkaid

All proceeds from this album are going to charitable organizations NextAid and South Africa’s Youth with a Vision, which is reason enough to drop some do-re-mi on the release, perhaps. Then again, the music contained therein should be plenty. Compiled by DJ OBaH, the mix is a stone-cold funkfest, taking in Latin and African rhythms, soulful house, disco and dub, all mixed in a creatively nonlinear fashion. (In other words, the tempo jumps around a lot.) Highlights—of which there are many—include the slow-burning “Together” from J Boogie’s Dubtronic Science and OBaH’s own pumped-up remix of the Pimps of Joytime’s “San Francisco Bound.”—Bruce Tantum - Time Out New York