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2LP
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MANANA 006LP
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Quasi is Ariwo's second album, after the release of their first self-titled album in 2017 (MANANA 002CD). Despite Ariwo's diverse mix of musicians (Cuba/Iran/Canada/UK) their music doesn't belong to any specific genre. In Quasi, Ariwo use the building blocks of deep bass, Afro-Cuban polyrhythms, carnival melody, and immersive live electronics as a starting point to engage with key players on London's jazz scene. The result is a hypnotic journey for the listener from techno to avant-garde jazz via West Africa and the Caribbean. Quasi aims to mirror the evolved direction of Ariwo's live set, which after extensive touring over the past three years has gradually become more stripped back and club-oriented. Many of the building blocks for this album started life as improvisations in live sets and have been developed into full tracks on Quasi. The album features guest appearances from MOBO winning saxophonist Binker Golding (Binker & Moses) and acclaimed UK keys player Joe Armon-Jones. Cuban trumpet players Thommy Lowry Garcia and Yelfris Valdes also feature on the album, bringing carnival melodies that interweave through the percussion and electronics. Ariwo have used songs from Quasi to create the music for Portals, a tour of Carlos Acosta's new contemporary dance company Acosta Danza in Havana.
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CD
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MANANA 002CD
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Ariwo are a Cuban/Iranian four-piece focused on the rich intersection between electronic music, Afro-Cuban rhythm and Iranian mysticism. Ariwo, their debut album, is the second release on Manana Records, launched as part of the !K7 Collective and inspired by 2016's groundbreaking Manana Festival in Santiago, Cuba. The band brings together Iranian electronic music composer Pouya Ehsaei and three of London's most influential Cuban musicians: Irakere and Carlos Acosta's Latin Grammy-winning percussion virtuoso, Hammadi Valdes, Yussef Kamaal and Sierra Maestra lead trumpeter Yelfris Valdes, and godfather of London's Cuban scene, Oreste Noda. To the band, the project's goal is to "connect our native musical traditions to electronic music in a way that pushes beyond traditional Cuban and Iranian identity, creating a sound that does not belong to any specific culture." The word "Ariwo" means "noise" in Yoruba, an African religion that came to Cuba during the transatlantic slave trade and heavily influenced the island's musical development. For the three Cuban musicians in particular, Ariwo is about shining a light on the incredible and largely unrecognized cultural heritage that resounds through the barrios of Havana, Matanzas, Guantánamo and Santiago de Cuba. Ariwo features genres like yambú, songo, guaguancó, and changüí, as well as echoes of Havana's legendary conga processions. Ehsaei programs his electronics and processes the instrumentation live, constantly changing the intensity to create a real-time dialog that elevates these rich ancestral traditions. RIYL: Irakere, Miles Davis, Carl Craig, Ondatropica, Hugh Masekela.
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2LP
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MANANA 003LP
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Double LP version, edition of 500, gatefold sleeve. Manana presents their third release, an album collaboration between the UK's Soundspecies and Ache Meyi, based in Santiago de Cuba, a groundbreaking fusion of Cuban folkloric music and electronics. The project was born in April 2016 in Santiago, in the balmy weeks leading up to Manana Festival and is the culmination of two chaotic weeks of rehearsals at the Casa Del Danzon and two sessions at the legendary Egrem studios. "Ache Meyi" can be translated into "Ache" ("power" or "blessings" in the Yoruba language) and "Meyi" ("double" or "twin" or "twice") and the band have their very own power twins, Hector and Rafael. Hector is the senior, patriarchal figurehead of the group alongside his apprentices Alieke and Rafael. Two female singers, Alina and Maire, complete the line-up. The band's identity is rooted in an interlocking web of Afro-Haitian rhythms like bembe, vodu, gaga, and merengue, absorbing these folkloric traditions from the neighborhoods in which they grew up. Soundspecies are brothers Henry and Olly Keen, a producer/DJ duo from Dorset who explore the connections between the rhythms of traditional folkloric percussive music and the sounds and forms of electronic dance music. Integrating electronics and melodies initially proved hard. "We were struggling to respond to the frenetic, seemingly impenetrable web of rhythmic sounds, and the singers' sense of tonality was quite free, jumping from one key to an unrelated one within songs," recalls Olly. However, at the legendary Siboney Egrem Studios in Santiago, they began separating the instruments, breaking the music down into textures and patterns and trying new directions with the sound. At a later session, Ache Meyi then jammed with kick and snare sounds on the MPC, playing to bembe rhythms recorded during the first session. Olly continues, "With a virtuoso like Hector, who has dedicated his whole life to his art, it could have been a challenge for us to suggest respectfully that he does it differently but he was the most open-hearted, patient and positive man. The show at the Manana festival was a euphoric experience for us. We wanted the album to capture and distil some of the energy from that night." RIYL: Carl Craig, Fourtet, Ondatropica.
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CD
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MANANA 003CD
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Manana presents their third release, an album collaboration between the UK's Soundspecies and Ache Meyi, based in Santiago de Cuba, a groundbreaking fusion of Cuban folkloric music and electronics. The project was born in April 2016 in Santiago, in the balmy weeks leading up to Manana Festival and is the culmination of two chaotic weeks of rehearsals at the Casa Del Danzon and two sessions at the legendary Egrem studios. "Ache Meyi" can be translated into "Ache" ("power" or "blessings" in the Yoruba language) and "Meyi" ("double" or "twin" or "twice") and the band have their very own power twins, Hector and Rafael. Hector is the senior, patriarchal figurehead of the group alongside his apprentices Alieke and Rafael. Two female singers, Alina and Maire, complete the line-up. The band's identity is rooted in an interlocking web of Afro-Haitian rhythms like bembe, vodu, gaga, and merengue, absorbing these folkloric traditions from the neighborhoods in which they grew up. Soundspecies are brothers Henry and Olly Keen, a producer/DJ duo from Dorset who explore the connections between the rhythms of traditional folkloric percussive music and the sounds and forms of electronic dance music. Integrating electronics and melodies initially proved hard. "We were struggling to respond to the frenetic, seemingly impenetrable web of rhythmic sounds, and the singers' sense of tonality was quite free, jumping from one key to an unrelated one within songs," recalls Olly. However, at the legendary Siboney Egrem Studios in Santiago, they began separating the instruments, breaking the music down into textures and patterns and trying new directions with the sound. At a later session, Ache Meyi then jammed with kick and snare sounds on the MPC, playing to bembe rhythms recorded during the first session. Olly continues, "With a virtuoso like Hector, who has dedicated his whole life to his art, it could have been a challenge for us to suggest respectfully that he does it differently but he was the most open-hearted, patient and positive man. The show at the Manana festival was a euphoric experience for us. We wanted the album to capture and distil some of the energy from that night." RIYL: Carl Craig, Fourtet, Ondatropica.
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12"
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MANANA 004EP
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Manana Cuba presents a new remix EP bringing together some essential re-works of Sound Species and Ache Meyi's collaboration recordings. The new re-works have attracted some familiar names from clubland: broken beat don IG Culture keeps the roots of "Ogún Meyi Meyi" intact with a bass-heavy, percussive attack; brilliant UK drummer and producer Tom Skinner (Hello Skinny) strips back "Egrem Bata Jam' on a pulsing new version; Chicago legend Ron Trent creates a more melodic dancefloor re-work of "Alina's Calypso" while Sound Species themselves beef up the original Afro-Haitian rhythms of the same track for a dubbier treatment.
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