V/A: CUBA: Music and Revolution: Culture Clash in Havana: Experiments in Latin Music 1975-85 Vol. 2 3XLP

Cuba: Music and Revolution: Culture Clash in Havana: Experiments in Latin Music 1975-85 Vol. 2 is the new album compiled by Gilles Peterson and Stuart Baker (Soul Jazz Records) that takes off in exactly the same vein as the much-acclaimed Vol. 1 – exploring the many styles that came out of Cuba in the 1970s as Latin and Salsa mixed with heavy doses of Jazz, Funk, and Disco to create some of the most dancefloor-friendly music ever made! The album comes as a heavyweight 3xLP set with extensive sleeve notes, and is jam-packed with heavy bass lines, synth and Wah-Wah guitar funk, combined with the heavyweight percussion, powerful brass lines and all-encompassing Latin rhythms of Cuban music known throughout the world. It features rarities from legendary Cuban artists such as Los Van Van, alongside Grupo De Experimentación, Farah Maria, Ricardo Eddy Martinez, Juan Pablo Torres, Grupo Sintesis and Orquesta Riverside, most remaining largely unknown outside of Cuba but have long been favourite club tracks and secret-weapons in Gilles Peterson’s record boxes! It reflects the most cutting-edge of 1970/80s Cuban groups – all searching for a new Cuban identity and new musical forms reflecting both the Afro-Cuban cultural heritage of a nation that gave birth to Latin music and its new position as a socialist state. Peterson and Baker have been involved in Cuban music for more than two decades – Gilles Peterson with his many Havana Cultura projects for his Brownswood label and Stuart Baker with a number of Soul Jazz Records albums recorded in Cuba. This Soul Jazz Records album is released in conjunction with Egrem, the Cuban state record company, and has been put together after the many crate-digging trips that both compilers have made on the streets of Havana and beyond in Cuba over a 20-year period.