La Excelencia's Fundamento

I think you could forgive me for being a mite dubious when a newsletter plopped itself on my electronic doorstep, proclaiming that "Mi Tumbao Social" was going to be the best salsa release of 2009. January wasn't even halfway done with itself yet!

I harrumphed like a disdainful elephant, eyeing skeptically the etchings in the 'Source of All Temptations' as delivered by Bruce Polin and the guys at Descarga. This particular review had been written by Pablo Yglesias, whose tastes I'd not had enough of a handle on yet (mine generally agree with Bruce's and agree-to-disagree with Peter Watrous').

Nevertheless, still delirious from my Epicurean success in a Szechuan restaurant involving "Strange Tasting Rabbit", I charged at the red rag and added La Excelencia's second album to my shopping cart. Then I forgot all about it until it surprised me out of the package three weeks after.

©Copyright 2009 La Excelencia. All Rights Acknowledged.

"Let's do this!" I thought to myself as I hit the play button on my iPOD. It was the shortest journey home I'd had in a long, long time; so absorbed was I in the music.

Straight off the bat I knew that La Excelencia had used old-school recording styles: I'd had to fiddle more than usual to get a suitable volume setting, which meant that they'd used less compression in the production. Put another way, their sounds were more dynamic i.e. greater distance between softs and louds: where softs were properly softer, and louds were loud. In the first passes, I listened simply to the melody, rhythm and arrangements, utterly captivated. My ears had to be prised away to give the lyrics their due attention, but they were delighted to have been made to yield. At last here were lyrics of true substance.

During Cuatro de Dicembre practice that night, I put it on the stereo and we listened to it all. Actually we played along to it all... the whole CD; and we did it again the next week. This was the first time every one of us loved everything on an album, and given how diverse Decemberists are in taste and background, it's a miracle.

It's been a month and the dial still returns to "Mi Tumbao Social" after sojourns with recent releases.

La Excelencia's approach is evocative of the early age of Fania - a time when salsa musicians were impassioned with creative hunger. You can hear their youth in every stroke, their drive, their passion. I'm entirely seduced by their artistic integrity - every cut on the album was written in fulfillment of a creative need, not with an eye to sales (that's what all of 4de12 picked up on). Ironically this may prove, distribution willing, to be its unintended advantage.

When Spanish Harlem Orchestra debuted, the refreshing manner with which their tracks were selected and recorded, in part stimulated a resurgence of salsa dura. "Mi Tumbao Social" has the same potential to inspire a return to the core values that made salsa relevant: social commentary that the listener can relate to, from the chirpy "Deja de Criticar" to the darkly profound "American Sueño". And speaking of it, the latter is an object lesson in how to take a traditional Cuban form like the güajira and transform it into a resident of perhaps New York City.

La Excelencia haven't shied away from their African roots, instead they've actively embraced them. The way they use the skins tells the listener that this band aren't in the business of paying formulaic lip-service to percussion; and yet their poise is perfectly counterpointed by brass whose brashness follow in the best of New York's traditions. Every cut's a winner and "Mi Tumbao Social" is a now permanent member of my DJ collection.

I would normally sum up now, but I think La Excelencia have done it better with "Aña Pa' Mi Tambor": the sentiment, the composition, the execution, are all right on the mark.

Listen to it. You'll understand.

Loo Yeo