TITLE: Roots Of Life
LABEL: Tummy Touch
REVIEW: Los Chicharrons are Ramon Santana and Morten Varano, veteran electronic dance music DJs and producers. They’ve taken their interest in the sounds of Mali and linked it up with their house music-based production style -- the result is a killer CD that’s a whole lot more than just your standard remix set. They started with live sessions in Bamako and Paris featuring singers Mama Draba and Saramba Kouyate plus a host of fine musicians, then layered on keyboards and programming that give the songs the flavors of Afrobeat (tracks 2 and 7), Latin music (4), psych (7) and soul (8). Running through each track is the funky, soulful undercurrent of classic 1980’s house -- almost every track sits at about 120 bpm, and the female Malian singers are a new twist on the gospel-influenced vocalists of house music. This is intelligent dancefloor music of the highest order, light-years ahead of folks who use world music as exotic seasoning in their same-old mixes.
REVIEWER: Bill Lupoletti
RECOMMENDED TRACKS: 1 2 4 7 8
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