SoundTreks: Los Amigos Invisibles, Ocote Soul Sounds, Diplo, & More!

Let's start out with two bands who know how to throw a party -- and never met a groove they didn't like. Los Amigos Invisibles and Ocote Soul Sounds both mix up a heady, heavily interdisciplinary blend of myriad dance and jam genres, but they realize their aesthetically similar projects quite differently: Los Amigos go the kicky (and sometimes kitschy), frenetic dance-party route, while Ocote Soul Sounds (a collaboration between Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra's Martin Perna and Grupo Fantasma's Adrian Quesada) prefer their grooves a bit mellower and more contemplative. I've reviewed both groups' most recent releases.

Los Amigos Invisibles: Commercial
It's easy to hear why Los Amigos are such a popular band to see live. Their fifth album grabs up just about every vibrant, booty-shaking, up-'til-dawn genre that's ever lived and throws them into a giant party mix: lounge grooves, cosmic funk, alt-rock, dub and a whole lotta disco. The kitschy campiness that dominated Superpop Venezuela is toned down but not gone, thankfully. Instead, it's shaped into subtler hints, like the kicky lead single "Mentiras" (which has an air of Saturday morning cartoons about it to our ears) and the flat-out awesome, Latin dance butt-rock that is "Merengue Killa." --Rachel Devitt

Ocote Soul Sounds: Coconut Rock
The difficulty with Afrobeat is that if you're not in the mood to lose yourself in a groove, there's precious little to grab onto. What's so interesting about Ocote Soul Sounds' project -- and what they do especially well on their third album -- is they mix up a fascinating concoction of jam genres: Afrobeat, yes, but also Latin rock, acid jazz, and (on the lovely "Vendendo Saude") bossa nova. It sounds like a heady brew, but somehow the multi-genre mix tightens the groove, requiring Ocote to maintain a precise attention to detail in order to balance all the elements of their hybrid aesthetic. --Rachel Devitt

Further Listening: This week's World View playlist, a collection of greatest hits from Ocote Soul Sounds and Perna and Quesada's other projects.

Next up is the second effort from the exciting duo that produced Soul Science, one of last year's most critically heralded new releases. Fulani griot/ritti virtuosos Juldeh Camara and British blues-rock guitarist/desert blues aficionado Justin Adams have once again pooled their various musical interests and come up with a richly layered collaboration on their latest, Tell No Lies. Here's my review.

Juldeh Camara and Justin Adams: Tell No Lies
On their second album, Gambian griot Camara and British guitarist Adams once again trace the conduits of rock, blues and West African music. Tell No Lies is not as immediately visceral as Soul Science; it's a bit more carefully exploratory, as if this time the two are really theorizing their collaboration. And whereas their debut seemed to study African music through the lens of blues-rock, Lies feels more like it's driven by Camara's ritti and his gritty voice, even on the blues "Fulani Coochie Man" and "Achu," which plays with voice modification. It is a powerful musical crossroads. --Rachel Devitt.

Also out last week was Eclipse, the latest by the honey-voiced Cape Verdean-Portuguese chanteuse Lura, whose last album, M'bem di fora, was a gorgeous, graceful tour de force.

Lura: Eclipse
Eclipse finds Lura in a markedly different mood than the passionate M'bem di fora -- or, more precisely, two intertwining moods: mellow and experimental. The album is infused with Cape Verdean rhythms, but it also plays with Afro-pop and highlife, smooth jazz (yikes!) and, on the last track, gut-wrenching electro-tango. It sounds exciting, but most of these diverse elements are filtered through a serene, laid-back soundscape that is at times a gorgeous setting for Lura's spun-gold vocals and at other times feels like the passion that voice is capable of is somehow muffled or, perhaps, eclipsed. --Rachel Devitt

Finally, for something completely different: globetrotting producer Diplo has gotten quite a reputation for homing in on, and then putting his own uber-hip spin on, some of the world's hottest scenes and sounds. This time around, he has made a trip to Jamaica, fallen in love with dancehall, paired up with fellow tastemaker Switch and created the character of Major Lazer -- a Jamaican commando who lost his arm in "the secret zombie war of 1984" and had it reconstructed with lasers -- to be the "face" of his new project. Whether you find that premise incredibly creative, delightfully silly or, uh, somewhat politically problematic, it sounds irresistible. Check out Sam Chennault's review.

Major Lazer: Gunz Don't Kill People, Lazers Do
Dancehall riddims serve as the album's backbone, but this is really pastiche, and there are frequent excursions into surf rock, one-drop reggae, 8-bit electro, and more. All of which is to say that this is a pop album. It's teasing and campy -- the sonic equivalent of a Quentin Tarantino film in that it's affectionate of its source material while managing to be completely irreverent as well. It's light, quirky and fun: at one point, a baby's cry lapses into auto-tune, and Prince Zimboo exclaims in deep patois, "Oh my goodness, you have built in Auto-Tune." That silliness serves it well. -- Sam Chennault