I shall begin by thanking Pablo Díaz-Reixa (aka El Guincho) for some of these discoveries.

A couple of years ago, soon after arriving in Barcelona, we went to play in a club, and to make up names in our guest list. Characters from J.G. Ballard like Bobby Crawford. But that’s another story. A song flew over my head. I was lucky when trying to define it to get it back.

Handclaps at the beginning, percussions, the rhythm, the singing it shouting it everytime we get to play it out ‘Yo quiero pedir que mi negra prefieraaaaa, que tenga dinero & que no se mueraaaaaa.

Desi Arnaz was a Cuban actor and musician that left us songs like this ‘Babalú’, undoubtedly the best version of it you shall be able to find.

Desi Arnaz- Babalú

From Cuba to Puerto Rico. I shall translate the lyrics.

‘I am going to spend my honeymoon in Puerto Rico. I want to dream under the blue Puerto Rican sky. I want to steal the sun from this Antillean sun. To pin it from your chest and feel its splendour mix with your heartbeat. Yes. I am going to spend my honeymoon in Puerto Rico. I want to drag all the stars and make with them a crown to decorate your black hair. I shall love you under the blue Puerto Rican sky’.

Félix Manuel Rodríguez Capó, better known as Bobby Capó, became, with songs such as this, an idol for cubans in the 1940s. The romantic songs that he used to write made him a refuge for people living war times. Songs to sing to your girl as she lies in bed.

Bobby Capó- Luna de Miel en Puerto Rico

Cumbiaaaaaaaaaaaa. I am obsessed with the mixtape that ZIZEK collective recorded for Mad Decent. The parties that these guys throw in Argentina, mixing cumbia, electro-reggaeton, dancehall and bastard pop are apparently quite awesome. The bass rattles agressive and the drums strike clean and hard.

ZIZEK-Soy Cumbia

Extraperlo make couples dance. Every time the sun sets you hear the lullabies. You listen to them and you believe they don’t want to wake you up. They regret to awake you. They kill you and make you lose the beat with their rhythm.

You listen to them in the lift to another dimension. The dimension where wedding bells toll so the bride can understand she is getting married this year. All in white, radiant like ever.

‘Desayuno Continental’ is their debut after many cocktails in Negroni’s at Barcelona. The palm trees of love will hide their bathing suits while they await for new orders. ‘Cavalcade’ is the song that the ghosts sing to you between the plants of Ciutadella. Tell your friend Wornie (if you know someone by that name) and spend the night up in the mountain listening to them. Sun rays come through the window.

Extraperlo- Cavalcade

Joe Crepusculo isn’t one for engagements, but he’s in love with you. Make him see things differently. Meet him secretly because you’ll listen to Gabriela and you will love her like a sister, she will sort out your problems. She wants to be yours and reply in kind. Perhaps because you are the first to love her. Without you she fills despondent. She wants to be yours and reply in kind.

Joël Iriarte has released two albums in two years, and what two records. ‘Escuela de Zebras’ was a presage and ‘Supercrepus’ the culmination. Spanish songs, let’s dance this techno. First, ‘Escuela de Zebras’.

Joe Crepusculo- Gabriela

Joe Crepusculo- Gabriela (El Guincho Remix)

And then ‘Supercrepus’.

The memory of these nights forever fresh will take you to the splendorous song of a summer song. The best song in your life. Like a ray that comes through. Let’s dance this techno.

Joe Crepusculo- La Cancion de Tu vida

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Remember, 20JFG kick it off in London next saturday, ICA bar, free entry, 8-1. Bring the knives.

El Guincho’s Alegranza is coming out on Young Turks on the 22nd of this Month, we can’t wait to have it on vinyl!

The elguitar sounds throughout ‘Armée Guinéenne’. It is always present. She kicks off lonely and then the voice shines like a ray of sun in Guinea, from where they come.

In 1961 Bembeya Jazz National got started with government support, something very common in the 1960′s Guinea, when President Sekou Toure created a framework to sponsor national groups and diffuse Guinean folklore. Aboubacar Demba Camara was Bembeya Jazz’s vocalist until he died in a car crash. Afterwards, the close relationshops between Fidel Castro and Guinea took them to Cuba, where Abelardo Barroso became their new voice.

In several records from the West-African group you can feel the cuban influence, something which makes sense given the way into which both musics feed into each other. ‘Hommage a Demba Camara’ includes this “Armée Guinéenne” that one would expect to hear blasting from some the windows of some Alan Moore’s hallucination of London. ‘10 Ans de Succes’, a live recording in Conakry in 1971 is also worth checking, if African music is full of something, it is live performances with no choruses, but stanzas repeating incessantly to wonderful melodic loops both difficult and wonderful.

Bembeya Jazz Nacional – Armée Guinéenne

The chanting in Souley Kanté’s ‘Bi Magni’ would make any song soar. It is hypnotic pop transcending any language barriers. Who cares where does this music come from? It doesn’t matter if its reggaeton, Congolese Rumba or Ghanan Afrobeat. If Bembeya Jazz Nacional sing in mandinka and blow me away more than if they sang if my own tongue, the rest doesn’t matter. It fades away in the background, magically.

Souley Kanté – Bi Magni

First time I listened to Toto La Momposina was in a Cumbia mixtape they put up in Mad Decent. From then I became obsessed with her. I even wrote to an e-mail I found of her web. The body of the e-mail said ‘Toto?”.

Anyway, I managed to grab one of her records, Carmelina. Toto says: “The drums are part of the how I transcended. One comes to life with a mission, and singing is mine’. The barefoot diva is happiness and passion. Feel the heat, the streets burning to Colombia’s Westerly rhythm.

Totó La Momposina – Cururá