The Bottom Line
Pros
- Yerba Buena performing 'Guajira (I love you too much)'
- Crazy Ken Band singing in Japanese
Cons
- Uneven quality of selections
Description
- 2 CD set of Latin music performed by international artists
- Compiled by DJ Gulbahar Kultur
- Released by Lola's World
Guide Review - CD Review: Latin Garden: The World of Latin Grooves
DJ Gulbahar Kultur ("WDR/Funkhaus Europa") is a collector of world music and of the unusual. Some of his past compilations include Oriental Garden, Harem's Secret, African Garden, Gypsy Garden, Asian Garden , etc. In this album, Latin Garden: The World of Latin Grooves, Kultur presents us with a mixed bag of Latin music tracks performed by unlikely artists in unlikely languages.With a liberal standard for defining Latin music and a planetary scope for artistic selection, the album delivers a mix of tracks that revel in the universality of Latin rhythms while fusing (and sometimes overshadowing) those rhythms with local musical traditions.
The result is an interesting fusion. "Milaya" by the St. Petersburg based Markscheider Kunst sounds a lot like Russian Gypsy music. The Crazy Ken Band's “Bossa Mapilla” at times segues to a Japanese scale. UK-based Ska Cubano gives us "Yiri Yiri Bon', West African Angelique Kidjo performs a nice "Congo Habanero", qawwali-grandmaster Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, from Sufi tradition, surprises with "Kinna Sohna". Mexico City’s Poncho Kingz bill themselves as the world’s only Hip-Trop band and show us what that sounds like in their “Space Cumbia”.
Add some Celia Cruz, Yerba Buena from New York and Ojos de Brujo flamenco fusion and you get 42 tracks of the unusual, unexpected and entertaining.
