Guacuco from Platanito / Guacuco by Alex Figueira

Music With Soul strikes again with a Double Sider Dancefloor Stormer that will leave critics arguing forever what genre it should be filed under. While they try to figure that out, play this 45 at your next wedding party, family reunion, corporate get-together or grandma’s birthday and watch people come to you in a matter of seconds to shout an inevitable “What the f*** is this?!” at you. It’s been exactly like that since the first time we played it.

“Guacuco” refers to a Venezuelan sea food delight, said to have extraordinary aphrodisiac properties and usually sold across the many coastal towns in the country.

Featuring a prominent place for the beloved Steel Drum, this great instrumental incorporates a fairly healthy dose of African and Brazilian percussion, acoustic and heavily Wah’ed electric guitars, all elements meticulously colliding until the improbable grand finale, when you will see yourself finally reaching that gorgeous caribbean beach you’ve been travelling to, welcomed by the frenzy of a Batucada block and a generous dose of Guacuco, closing your eyes to enjoy the mild breeze of the late afternoon to then open them and find that astonishing soundset right in front of you. You wish that hypnotic rhythm will go on forever, but it’s vinyl so you have to wake up, place the needle back at the beginning of the record and start the trip again.

Having made a name with multiple musical endeavours in the past (Fumaça Preta, Conjunto Papa Upa, etc), the founder of Music With Soul Records presents the first creative effort under his own name in the highest DIY fashion: every single aspect of the manufacturing of this record, apart from Mastering (Artur Jolly at Reco Master, São Paulo, Brazil) and Pressing (My45.de, Germany) has been done by the artist himself. Your ears will not believe it but the fact is, this is a one-man effort. Maybe that’s all you need to mention when that puzzled listener comes to you shouting the guaranteed “What the ….” question.

Blurring the line between tradition and innovation, beyond the Anglo-Saxon axis.

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