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From the sweltering tropical depths of Cali, Colombia Will ‘Quantic’ Holland’s studio band Los Miticos Del Ritmo (The Mythics of Rhythm) deliver an album of hip shaking, dancefloor quaking instrumental cumbias. The LP is 100% analogue and comes with an original screen-printed front cover designed by the London based artist Lewis Heriz.
Assembled using vallenato and cumbia musicians living in Cali, Los Miticos del Ritmo are a 7 piece studio band put together by British musician, producer and now Colombian resident Will ‘Quantic’ Holland.
Covers of Queen’s ‘Another One Bites The Dust’, Michael Jackson’s ‘Don’t Stop’, The Abyssinians reggae classic ‘Satta Massagana’ and Gildardo Montoya’s ‘Fabiola’ (as featured on Soundway’s ‘The Original Sound of Cumbia’ sit along side original cumbias on this feel good, house party cumbia LP. Recorded in Will’s home studio in Cali, his approach was to produce an album with the aesthetics of 1960s tropical recordings made in Colombia and the Caribbean. Careful attention made to preserve the analogue quality of the recording at every stage.
‘The idea of the record was to record something that sounded like a lost cumbia classic,’ said Will in an interview with Soundway ‘Like something dug out of a Barranquilla basement after decades of humidity and dust. In a modern climate of mashups and sampling, it seemed refreshing to record something with musicians doing covers and approaching new ideas for cumbia, rather than rehashing old tricks.’
The record was recorded entirely on 4 track tape, using a process of overdubs and tape transfers to record multiple sessions at different times with different musicians. As Holland began to play the dub plates of the project in his DJ sets around the world, tracks like ‘Cumbia de Mochilla’ and ‘Another one Bites the Dust’ slowly became sure-fire dancefloor winners.
Los Mitcios Del Ritmo first saw the light of day on Quantic’s vinyl only EP ‘Hip Hop En Cumbia’, released last year through Tru Thoughts. The group includes Ancer Rada (percussion) grandson of the great Colombian accordionist Franscisco Pacho Rada, one of very first Colombian troubadours to tour unaccompanied with just his voice and accordion. The band is also compromised of Combo Barbaro regulars Fernando Silva (bass) and Freddy Colorado (percussion).
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MUSIC FROM PLANET EARTH: PAST, PRESENT & FUTURE
Soundway Records was conceived in 2002 by label owner Miles Cleret whilst returning from Ghana with a hoard of dusty old 45s and LPs that had mostly not been heard outside the former Gold Coast since their original release. Planned on a whim the trip was not one of the carefully planned research expeditions that Miles would later embark on to any number of far-flung tropical destinations. On the contrary he left England with no idea of what he might find or that it might be the start of a career in the record business.
Although the label has it's roots in West Africa the scope has grown to include many other parts of the tropical belt with the aim of making available recordings that have in most cases never been available outside of their original countries and often not even there for over 30 years. Over the years Soundway's modus operandi has been to approach the music from a different angle from many of the more established "World Music" labels. By focusing on more obscure artists as well as big names and often concentrating on progressive recordings more in sync with Cleret's generation and background in DJ culture and dance-music. Styles have included afro-beat, funk, highlife, ethio-jazz, molam, calypso, cumbia, champeta, biguine, latin-jazz and disco as well as many unclassifiable recordings.
Since 2012 Soundway has begun releasing new material from a carefully selected handful of contemporary recording artists including acclaimed acts Ondatropica, Bomba Estereo and Ibibio Sound Machine
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