Lundgaard - 2016 - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Rued Langgaard - Complete Symphonies 1 [COMPACT DISCS] date 02/03/2006

Spend enough time in Havana and you will bear witness to Rumba, Son, the cadences of Orisha, Palo, and Abakua traditions - Cuban music whose meanings, melodies and rhythms are informed by ancient African undercurrents whispering through the culture's collective unconscious. Okuté, an ensemble of Havana's finest rumberos, brings these constellations of sound to the surface, weaving them into something intuitively it's own. Their self-titled album is as raw and unfiltered as Havana, where lines blur between the sacred and profane, between centuries and even millennia of melodies, rhythms and incantations. These elements straddle the old and new, incorporating unbreakable rhythms with lyrics and melodies strong enough to endure not only the middle passage but backbreaking centuries of slavery followed by struggles for independence. Okute is a true musical triumph - original and authentic, and like the essence of rumba, rich with spiritual medicine and musical delight for anyone who1 Caridad2 Quiere La Rumba3 Chichiribako4 Gaston's Rumba5 Rumbarimbula6 Na Na Saguey7 Orayakinyongo8 Devuelvame La Voz

In the light of his later music, it is by no means difficult to imagine Domenico Scarlatti strolling under the Moorish arcades of the Alcazar or listening at night in the streets of Seville to the intoxicating rhythms of castanets and the half oriental melodies of Andalusian chant. To them Saracen of his Sicilian ancestry and Neapolitan childhood must have responded. (Ralph Kirkpatrick, Domenico Scarlatti)