Nueva Musica

The Latin Project, Nueva Musica
Loungy Latin-y dance music; uptempo, with traditional acoustic instruments and percussion wedded to heavy electronic beats and sound effects. Lots of funky synth organ, as well as Spanishy guitar, and brass. Some have occasional lyrics, but the vocals mostly function as instruments. The songs are basically dancy, long tracks that have heavy beats and don’t change too much. They’re all basically the same tempo—that “nn-tss nn-tss” club tempo.

*1. (4:21) acoustic guitar, then bass, then beat. Kind of sounds like the gipsy kings but brassy and electronic and loungy. Has brass, heavy beat, cool brazilian-ish sounds. Kind of same and dancy
2. (5:17) starts with manipulated wail; goes into beat. Spacy wind sounds. Has acoustic guitar bits—manipulated too.
3. (5:04) funky bass; doubled female voice singing in Español and English, male back ups. Low funky beat.
*4. (4:48) Portuguese; halting, dark electronicy echoy beat with interesting syncopation. Some vocals, and breathy non-verbal vocals. Goes through some very different stages.
5. (4:58) more laid-back bass-heavy groove. Sparser sound, with some echoey female Spanish vocals.
6. (6:24) disco! faster, rushing tempo, slap bass, female vocals in English, soft aahhs and wahwah sounds. Turns into a bossanova.
*7. (7:07) watery spacy echoes and aahhhs merge with heavy full samba beats
*8. (5:41) acoustic guitar and piano and boppy bongos and vocal harmonies become a disco/gospelly number with funky-ass synth solos.
*9. (4:58) dark smooth cool beats and echoes on a string background
*10. (5:53) sloow strings with guitar notes and occasional goofy sounds like jews harp twanging and funny voice effects; picks up a thumping beat but feels slow and sort of mock-serious. I like it! ---reviewed by mandy (la chanteuse)