Soul Jazz Records presents this amazing 3 disc/5LP + dvd Box set Afro-Colombian music and film project made in Colombia.
Film-makers/music producers Santiago Posada and Simon Meija came to Palenque, near the Caribbean coast of Colombia, to record the music of the area and to make a documentary film about the music and people of Palenque.
Palenque, the location of the first free slave (or Maroon) community in the Americas, is also a central location for Afro-Colombian culture. With its own unique style of music and language, heavily influenced by its African heritage, it holds a unique position in the world and is today proclaimed by UNESCO as a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity.
The Colombian-born film-makers, who were fascinated by this culture, traveled to Palenque to build a studio in the remote town, west of Cartegena, in order to record the highly percussive roots music that uniquely mixes African and Latin traditions in equal flavours. They stayed in the town for three months, filming the everyday life and recording music from the area and once finished left the studio for the people of the area to use.
Once back home they enlisted a select number of like-minded electronic, house and dubstup artists to produce a mindblowing second disc of remixes - including some incredible music from Osunlade, Mattias Aguayo, Kromestar and others to interpret the original works.
This set includes the DVD, the CD of original music and the CD of remixes. It comes in a stunning three case box set with sleeve notes about the project and the history of Palenque and exclusive photography.
There is also an extremely limited (1000 worldwide) incredible 5LP (comes with free DVD) box set available.
NB Digital Download is for music only.
Read more about the project here.
Jende ri Palenge from Simón Mejía on Vimeo.