Auntie Flo in Cuba, by Auntie Flo

Auntie Flo in Cuba

by Auntie Flo

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	1.	Die Bailando feat Eric Alejandro 13:01	info	buy track
	2.	Mother Theresa 05:56	info	buy track

about

Auntie Flo touched down in Cuba in Feb 2014 to perform live at the inaugural Havana World Music Festival. Partly inspired by Mala’s 2013 album ‘Mala in Cuba’, we managed to book a couple of days of studio time in Havana, hosted by the Laboratorio Nacional de Música Electroacústica.

On the Saturday evening, we were invited to perform at “Villalon” - a weekly free party open for all and regularly attracting crowds of 2000+. A big soundsystem is erected in a public square and the local house DJs play music for 4 hours or so every week. We would be the 2nd non-Cuban act (after Mala) to perform and, as we were due to play live as well as DJ, were required to be interviewed in order to ensure we would be the right fit for the party.

Having past this ‘test’, word spread by text message that we were playing so we turned up to find well over 4000 people had turned up, a lot of them wearing British flags in support (a sight we’d never seen before!). The gig went well and over the course of the day and night, we met a whole host of local musicians who we invited to the studio later the week.

We didn’t know who we would see at the studio but were pleasantly surprised that a handful of the musicians we’d met had made it – amazing talent on trumpet, vocals, percussion and keys. In the evening after the first days session, I chopped up some of the percussion and trumpets we’d recorded and made a simple loop. When we returned the next day, I gave the loop to Eric Alejandro and asked him to come up with a vocal for it.

We’d agreed to appear on Cuban Music Television later that afternoon so were limited with time. With only ten minutes to go of the final session, Eric said he’d come up with the lyrics for the loop. So we set up some mics and played the loop for six minutes. He recorded the vocal in one take and absolutely smashed it. We managed to beg for another ten minutes of studio time so we could record a second take and ended up being able to add trumpets too. The track became ‘Die Bailando’, a 12 minute Rhumba-jam.

Many thanks to everyone at the Institute, to the British Council, British Embassy and to the musicians who performed on the release. In particular, Julian, Rhys, Will @ Lake of Stars Festival, Hugo, Usmani @ Casa Vitrales, Erlend and everyone at HWM, Teresa, Shingai, Eric, Yissy, Jorge, Julio and everyone at the LNME.

Brian d’Souza / Auntie Flo Dec 2014.
highlifeworldseries.tumblr.com

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released June 4, 2020

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about

Auntie Flo UK

Brian d’Souza is an award-winning sound artist, DJ, music producer and live performer known for ‘taking World Music into the future’ (The Guardian).

Winner of the SAY Award for ‘Radio Highlife’ and Electronic Musician of the Year by Nordoff Robbins cementing him as a central figure in a ‘new strand of club music fusing electronic and world influences’ (The Wire). ... more

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