Afrosound - 1974 - Carruseles

Afrosound 

1974

Carruseles

01. Raspodia Del Chinito

02. Carruseles

03. Zaire Pop'

04. Me Voy De La Vida

05. Salsa Con Tabaco

06. Negra Suramuya

07. Banana De Queso

08. Baila Felipe

09. Negua

10. Ponchito De Colores

11. Mi Sonsito

Mariano Sepúlveda: guitar

Hernán Gutiérrez: piano

Fernando Villegas: congas

Rafael Benítez: timbales

Jesús Villegas: bongo

Rafico Restrepo: guiro

Released in 1974, Afrosound's Carruseles is the band's third long player and is one of their most sought-after records, with good reason. The recording continues the fantastic mix of psychedelic guitar, exotic keyboards, deep bass, and heavy Afro-Caribbean rhythms of its predecessors, but this time around the band really stretches out on a couple of numbers, making it arguably their most experimental and entertaining. Once again Fruko is at the helm in the studio, simultaneously holding it down and allowing the musicians to explore their most spaced-out fantasies. His trusty mentor, Mario "Pachanga" Rincón, returns to the mixing console, pulling all sorts of sonic tricks with edits, panning, reverb, and echo. Wilson Saoko adds his usual playful and wigged-out vocal bits that float over everything like some sort of twisted inner consciousness. Add to this the occasional drum machine, Moog, and Mellotron and you have a formula for a truly unique hybrid unprecedented at the time in Colombia. What makes this Afro-sonic experiment so captivating is the inherent contradictions and contrasts within the formula itself, mixing as it does conventional Latin forms like cumbia, pasebol, son pregón, descarga and salsa with rock, funk and African music as well as unclassifiable studio improvisations. The miracle is that Fuentes trusted the house musicians and their engineer enough to not only let them make a record, but to keep on producing releases through the decade and into the next, yielding a treasure trove of tunes, with Carruseles being the crown jewel on top.