Rough Guide To Salsa Clandestina

[coll]; Rough Guide to Salsa Clandestina
Reviewed by Sadie O., 10/11/07
Salsa con all kinds of different sabor – the only common thing is that it’s all a bit uncommon. Oh, it’s all very much recognizably Salsa first and foremost, but there’s a bit of urban, some funk, some rock, some international, hip hop, reggaeton… All of it is extremely well played and it’ll lift anyone’s spirits. Some of is is just insanely great.
No FCCs detected. I like… 6, 7, 11, 14 and 15 best. Whew!
1. ***uptempo and very energetic Cuban-flavored urban salsa with great horns and percussion – JB cover in English. Very cool violin solo, too. Damn! Crazy-ass piano solo as well!
2. ***hard and funky modern salsa. This’ll get your metabolism kick-started! Another amazing piano solo…
3. **just the thing to chill out – but not too much! Uptempo complex percussion, sweet acoustic guitar, vocal harmonies.
4. **midtempo, complex percussion and otherwise fairly simple instrumentation.
5. **midtempo with swingy keyboard and horns, sweet vocals. Don’t be fooled – the lyrics are dead serious. Builds complexity and energy.
6. ****very downtempo and VERY funky – and creamy smooth. Interesting combo of flutes and electronics… No vocals.
7. ****midtempo salsa con Reggaeton. Mucho gnarly! Vocals in male, female, rap, song, English, Spanish.
8. ***somewhat uptempo samba parade vibe with elements of everything and everywhere. Par-TAY!
9. ****spoken intro, then uptempo, energetic Latin funk with “deadly fun” – Los Mocosos ROOOL!
10. ***brief kiddie spoken intro, then midtempo hard-edged salsa with dark vocals and lyrics in accented English.
11. ****crazy cool mashup of Middle Eastern and Latin. Downtempo, with rough vocals, and some sitar, big guitars. Not Arab-Andalusian fusion, but something else again.
12. **uptempo, with very complex percussion. Stones cover in English. Second half is something else, in Spanish, and IMO much better.
13. ***midtempo, self-consciously slinky groove from pop darlings – definitely helped by its playfulness.
14. ****spoken intro, then scratching and beatboxing to downtempo Latin funk bass and horns groove. Uber-cool.
15. ****Klezsalsa(!) Midtempo, swingy, laid-back but utterly mad. The piano is mental – there’s bits of “Hall of the Mtn. King” as well as “Alley Cat”…