Atom Rhumba have made it! The "most promising band" label with which so many media have tagged the Basque band, picturing them as "one of the best bands in Spain" ever since the times of  Hormonal Riot (1997)- all of that is obsolete with this album. Atom Rhumba are not "promising" anymore. They are the raw, palpitating and infectious reality. Backbone Ritmo is the proof that they have overcome any label or influence recognised before (JSBX, Gories, Contortions...), and have got down to what they best do: the infectious, pure Rythm of the best rock and roll.

That "promising band" label has been long following them: in ‘97 they came out triumphant from the Villa de Bilbao -the most prestigious band contest made in Spain. Dirt Shots (1999) followed and they begun touring endlessly and getting recognition from every media. 2001's Chasin' the Onagro, produced by Mick Collins, got up in every "album of the year" top-ten, critics hailed them and touring wasn’t limited to Spain -France also surrendered. So it was time to move forward and live up to the expectations created. Hundreds of incendiary shows have paid a reward: they play better and they write songs like few can write. And so they've finally recorded what fans and media alike were long asking: the best rock album to appear in Spain in many, many years, a record that can look over the shoulder to any international release. Now, we are talking about a band with few competitors anywhere.

Backbone Ritmo has been produced by well-known Kaki Arkarazo and, as usual in them, it’s played alive, first-second take, the way true raw rock albums are done. Which is not an obstacle for the variety and risk the album exhudes: Kaki has managed to get an amazing sound, full of groove but rich in angles and nuances. The opening trio will make you surrender to the anfethaminic enthusiasm that the album exhales, breaking any other attempt they ever made. And in just 5 songs, Atom Rhumba prove that any expectations were, if anything, way too cautious. The B side is richer in experimentation, dangling in the craks of diverse music genres (country, soul, garage). Way beyond any etiquette.

“Backbone Ritmo” was not only the record that got Atom Rhumba to their musical highest point to date, it also got them far away: from any Spanish village and city in an extensive tour, to France and Japan, where critics and listeners were enthusiastic about the basque band.

Was it possible to go one step beyond? This answer will have to hold until the band’s next album is done. But what you are going to realize about, listening to “Concrete Mixer”, is that the 10 songs of that album were far too good to let them lay still.

And so, from Javi Pez to Kaki Arkarazo (the producer of “Backbone Ritmo”), from Josetxo (Los Bichos) and Murky (Grimorio, Patrullero Mancuso) to Manta Ray; some reputed characters from the Basque and Spanish music scene have commited to the difficult but joyful task of giving a new flavour to THE WHOLE “Backbone Ritmo” album. The results will have to be judged by the listener -variety is the key here-, but it is proven here that these 10 songs have a lot to offer. And it goes to the band’s credit that they have the will to dare, experiment, and try, letting others play with their songs -making them richer, dismantling and reconstructing them, in this melting pot called “Concrete Mixer”. With exclusive cover by the great Olaf Ladousse.

Now more than ever before, Dance to the Backbone Ritmo!

A spicy tidbit for fans... Or a new dimension to the sound of the best Basque band.

Celebrating the release of their amazing fourth LP “Backbone Ritmo”, Munster releases in CD and vinyl this “Gone” single, a song which represents rather perfectly the spirit and indeed the name itself of “Backbone Ritmo”: as Rober! (guitar and vocals) himself says, “a song to dance with, twisting, contorting. throwing your bones out of their joints”. And if the original song is like this, wait ‘til you hear the remixes!!

It’s a simple story, according to Rober!: “We picked them up to do the work do to the admiration and mutual respect. We like their work and they like ours”. And so, Guillermo Piccolini (ex Pachuco Cadaver, now in Venus) and Josetxo Anitua (Cancer Moon) started working in their remixes. With a hit like that in their hands, it was difficult that the result was any bad. But both of them give the song a new edge with a personal sound, much more danceable, two perfect items to confuse the rock guys, who will not understand this so easily. But boy, Atom Rhumba love risk! In any case, Josetxo gives a key: “I’ve done a remix with respect to the original song, making it more danceable, it’s a rock remix to dance with”.

So to sum up, “Gone” is an interesting, daring and -most important- enjoyable experiment that breaks with the orthodox creed of what a rock band must and must-not be, and which proofs that Atom Rhumba are interested in two things above everything: dance and rythm!!

This album compiles Boris Gardiner’s two first solo albums, “Soulful Experience” and “What’s Happening?” (both 1970). Gardiner added a SOUL feeling to the Jamaican reggae ever since co-leading The Upsetters with Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry. Reputed Studio 1 session bass player and singer, nowadays Gardiner is also a producer for the studio. A beautiful, enjoyable blend of reggae and soul music.

Of all the -many and excellent- Cuban “descargas” that ever have been, this one we proudly present you has been the most influentual, hot and important of them all -and allegedly the first one. Which is the logical accomplishment of an outstanding musician and conductor.

Israel “Cachao” Lopez has been compared with Duke Ellington by sociologist Raúl Fernández, who explains that this double bass player transformed Cuban music in the same way that “the Duke” did, making Jazz evolve from a dance form into a more abstract style for the listener. Fernandez argues that Cachao had the same influence in Cuban music. For the first time, Cuban popular music was presented as a music that could be actually listened to, rather than just danced to.

This “miniature” Descargas, recorded in 1957 live at the studio for the Panart label -after the success of the live sessions of the same name at the Tropicana club-, were named that way because of the maximum time (from two to three minutes) that the musicians had to record each piece, and they really were equally influenced by Son and Rumba rather than only by Jazz.

These fabulous live acts brought fame to many of the musicians involved in them, such as Tata Güines, a master percussionist, whose influentical conga style was required in New York. So was Cachao, who flies to New York to be part of the Tito Rodríguez orchestra from 1964 to 1966. Admiring personalities include Andy García, who has been fighting to get Cachao nominated for the Grammys and claims this album to be the best “bogaloo” recording ever made.

The Cuban Regime would end with these Jazz sessions in the 60’s. But we still have here the wonderful, unique Cuban jazz flavor, trapped and recorded at its peak in Cachao’s “Descargas”,  presented here in TWO DIFFERENT LP’s (number 1 being the original album and number 2 songs from the same 57-61 era) and a digipack CD (which combines both LPs). 3 different ways to feel the heat of the best Cuban music.

The place is packed, the chicks are silky and smiling. Fingers snap for action or ice or attention. There's a halo of anticipation, a ground swell of involment... then silence... a Dimming of house lights... Announcement... This is a LIVE perfromance.
The whole scene captured ìliveî for posterity, the one-time-only becomes forever. For the players, it's no longer just another date, the explosion is pure and perfect. Everything comes together.

Cal Tjader ghas lived with ìliveî audiences since his early days as a drummer with Dave Brubeck, and since then he stepped out as a leader for many years after that, he has been followed by crownds and creative players who have helped build for Tjader's group its great reputation as in-person performers.

This time is the Lighthosue Club at Hermosa Beach (CA) february 20 1969. And the star players are Armando Peraza (congas), Joe Kloess (electric piano), Paul Wraburton (bass) and Mike Buono on drums... With Cal (on vibes) they are PLUGGED IN to the life and times and demands of an audience in love with their playin. Cal indulges his listeners. He feeds their very presence. He covers the floor and ceiling and walls with miraculous warmth. He presses nerves, he underscores the primitive potential of the moment. He and the group lay it all down Fresh and Free... They radiate.

In addition to the original release, we have added  7 songs from a shown in Aspen, Colorado a year before, also with Armando on precussion that will please you all.

Cal Tjader was an accomplished jazz swinger who always slipped between music’s cracks. He was one of the first to successfully introduce Latin dialects to the jazz language, which accorded him great popularity -and, tipically, critical disdain. Born in St. Louis 1925, Tjader was first heard in Dave Brubeck’s trio and later in George Shearing’s hugely popular quintet. Tjader kicked off his own recording legacy at Fantasy Records and switched to the high-profile Verve Records label in 1961, yielding such classics as BAMBOLEATE (also available from Vampisoul).

This Vampisoul 2-in-1 set (two complete albums on CD, a selection from them on LP) catches Tjader mid-career in the first two of his three albums on Skye Recordings, the label he owned with fellow musicians Gary McFarland and Gabor Szabo. SOLAR HEAT was recorded in January 1968. Tjader is beautifully framed here by Gary McFarland’s crystalline arrangements and João Donato’s gorgeously understated organ. Tjader and McFarland are ideally matched here, particularly on the pop covers of “Never My Love” and “La Bamba” and McFarland’s own “Fried Bananas” and the entrancing “Eye Of The Devil”.

Recorded eight months later, CAL TJADER SOUNDS OUT BURT BACHARACH is a curious collection that continued Skye’s reputation for putting a pretty polish on pop perennials. Tjader sounds out an offbeat set of Burt Bacharach originals with a rhythm section of L.A. studio musicians and an ever-subtle sprinkling of overdubbed horns and strings. What’s most interesting here is that Bacharach’s harmonic and rhythmic complexity is nearly absent -although “Moneypenny Goes For Broke” (from the James Bond score CASINO ROYALE) hints at it– forcing the listener to consider the composer’s gift for melodic writing and Tjader’s melodic approach to playing. This is particularly evident in the way Tjader handles the tunes made popular by Bacharach’s most cogent muse, Dionne Warwick: “I Say A Little Prayer,” “You’ll Never Get To Heaven” and the hymn-like “Message To Michael.”

Cossa Nostra was formed by very different young personalities who just had in common a strong desire to “make it” outside of their Mexican frontiers, way up the Rio Grande. Rudee Charles (called Rudee Bantú Black), from the artificial-showesque Gay Crooners, Norma Valdés, blues woman of depurate singing and ambitions, Gillermo Briseño, a skilled piano and guitar player destined to go later to the “nueva cancion”, Javier Flores Zoa (star bass player), Jorge “Abelino” Guerrero, and Malena Soto –a willing singer with a supreme talent for dancing; all these youngsters together managed themselves to record two LP’s (”COSSA NOSTRA” and “ADOPTA UUN ARBOL”, both published in Raff Records) and spent long periods of time touring the USA and Panama. This was their attitude since at the beginnint of the 70’s it was clear enough that Mexico did not offer a future for musicians but this future was in the model of Carlos Santana. Besides, the US audiences were ready and willing for new, latin sounds. But after a couple years of endless touring, tired of hunger and hard times, they returned to their land and resigned themselves to end their music adventure. Fortunately, they left a wonderful recorded legacy.

This reeissue offers both –ultra rare- Monster & Spicy Latin funk albums recorded in Mexico City in 1971 and 1972. The groove here is much more soulful funky rather than Latin funky. Heavy grooves right from the start, with hard guitar, bass, drums and organ kicking it and not letting up , sounding a little like the Black Sugar, Banda Black Rio or Unaio Black albums if you can imagine U-Roy singing along with the rhythm tracks and some strangely dissonant background singers chiming in to boot. Includes the great cuts "Nuestra Cosa" , “Get D