Night drive with Horacio El Negro Hernandez and Robby Ameen

So you look forward to something with a sense of heightened anticipation and it doesn’t turn out the way you’d expected, but never mind. There I was looking forward to my ‘throbbing drive’ – did I really write that? lord, lord… Though I did listen to Rhythm & Sound and quite enjoyed it (except that I had to turn it down every time every time I hit a red light – it’s embarrassing sitting next to another driver deafening them with your music), I found something else much more enjoyable instead. I know virtually nothing about Cuban music, but am a long-term fan of Kip Hanrahan who has dipped much more than just a toe into such waters. I was lucky enough to be sent three of American Clave’s most recent releases (review here). (Takes deep breath): Horacio El Negro Hernandez & Robby Ameen’s ‘El Negro And Robby At The Third World War’ is a typically trans-genre work on the former New Yorker’s label. Hernandez and Ameen are both drummers and their combined attack mercilessly drives a number of different styles from jazz to South American to blues to rock to rap (that last one is the only bad track). In its pantheistic ambition it reminds me a little of Prince’s Sign O’ The Times. One day I’ll get round to writing a list of reasons why I love Kanrahan’s project (perhaps something along the lines of the liner notes to this album quoted in my earlier post), but for now I wanted to just note the amazing power of these rhythms – I’m particularly taken by the incredible piano on La Timba Francesca. It’s familiar from other Cuban music, but it’s so (almost literally) muscular, so fluently arch. If you download these two tracks, do please play them loud.

Oh and the Wibutee I was driving to see was great. Good to see Dan. I screwed up the courage to talk to Wibutee’s founder, Hakon (shy retiring sort that I am), who I’d interviewed last year and taken to the ICA for a surprisingly successful evening involving a gatecrashed Interpol gig (post here). Great also to bump into Phil Clarkson preparing to video the final act.

MP3: Horacio El Negro Hernandez & Robby Ameen: La Timba Francesca + Far From Beirut (Lino 5)