GRAMMY-Nominated Orquesta Akokán Ignite A Mambo Renaissance On ‘Caracoles’

Photo by Casey Liu
May 15 2024

TRACKLIST
1. Con Licencia
2. Pan con Tíbiri
3. Caracoles
4. Suave Suave
5. Cha-Cha-Cha Pa Ca (feat. Carolina Oliveros)
6. La Fiera
7. Pregonero
8. Las Siete Vidas de Inés
9. Flor di mi Campo
10. Doña Felipa

“Con Licencia” by Orquesta Akokán is out now, buy/stream it here.

Caracoles is out on July 12, Pre-Save/Pre-Order it here.

Today, Orquesta Akokán asserts a bold and innovative future for mambo, announcing the July 12 release of their third album Caracoles, via Daptone Records (Sharon Jones, Thee Sacred Souls, Charles Bradley). With the announcement they share a celebratory, ritualistic, dance-inducing video for the lead single “Con Licencia.” Watch/listen to “Con Licencia” and Pre-Save/Pre-Order Caracoles HERE.

Caracoles introduces the band’s new singer and lyricist Kiko Ruiz, not only a formidable performer and presence, but a tata — priest — in the Palo Mayombe religion. For Ruiz, mambo is both a song and a prayer, beseeching good spirits to guide one’s journey away from darkness. The video for “Con Licencia” depicts Kiko’s daily gunpowder ritual of calling the dead to free him from negative energy in his home in Central Havana’s San Leopoldo neighborhood,  where  beauty and joy are poignantly juxtaposed against a crumbling city.


Watch “Con Licencia” here.

Of the single, the Kiko says, “For me, Cuban music, dance and religion are intrinsically intertwined; they make up who I am, and I wanted the song to represent all of those cultural traditions.”

Orquesta Akokán is a Billboard Latin Music Award-winning, GRAMMY-nominated ensemble based in New York and in Cuba. Back at the helm are producer and multi instrumentalist Jacob Plasse and virtuosic pianist, composer and arranger Michael Eckroth – a collaboration that continues to lead Orquesta’s exploration of the sublime mambo in all its depth and breadth.

With Caracoles, Orquesta Akokán (a Cuban Yoruba word meaning “from the heart”) are making orquesta gigante tunes with a style wholly their own, like Charlie Parker performing in 2024 Havana. Thanks to the band’s relentless and intricate rhythmic interplay and driving momentum, Caracoles is marked by its danceability. This is undoubtedly music that inspires the body to move, but it also is designed to uplift the spirit — the profane and the prophetic are all interwoven throughout this album. In the mambos about divination and needs of the dead, Ruiz sings in this particular Congo dialect, designed to be impenetrable by the uninitiated.

Recorded live at the famed Abdala studios in Havana, Orquesta Akokán is set to deliver their most explosive effort to date.

ABOUT THE ORQUESTA AKOKÁN MUSICIANS

Jacob Plasse continues his extensive exploration of Latin music, faithful to a path that began in 2007 when he co-founded salsa brava band Los Hacheros.

Michael Eckroth, renowned as a renaissance musician, applies his profound knowledge of Cuban music and a longstanding history of collaborating with iconic greats from the Latin music and the jazz worlds, from Pedrito Martinez to John Scofield .

A light joyousness permeates the tunes’ radiant riffs, thanks to the spellbinding virtuosity of percussionists who revel in the same rhythmic fleetness of the Cuban maestros while adding their own stamp to the beats: Keisel Jimenez (Havana d’Primera, Arturo O’Farrill)  and the young phenoms Roberto “Tato” Vizcaino (who has collaborated with esteemed musicians, including Roberto Vizcaíno, Gabriel Hernández, Chucho Valdés) and Yuya Rodriguez (daughter of renowned musician and percussionist Octavio Rodriguez Rivera, and winner of Cuba’s Fiesta del Tambor in 2019).

Grounding the percussionists is the formidable bass of Gaston Joya, who was awarded the Order for Cuba’s National Culture in 2017 and who can be heard on virtually all the most highly acclaimed Cuban jazz records of the last two decades.

And the fierce, dynamic horns (nine total!) are led by alto saxophone player Cesar Lopez, former member of Irakere, Cuba’s greatest jazz band;  tenor saxes Emir Santa Cruz Hernández and Jose Luis “Chewy” Hernández; baritone saxophonist Evaristo Denis; trumpeters Harold Madrigal Frías, Reinaldo “Molote” Melián, Orlando “Bocasa” Peña; trombonists Heikel Fabian and Yoandy Argudin.

For the first time in their recordings, Orquesta Akokán spotlights the layered luminosity of vibrant female coros, care of Lisset Caro Farquenson, Diana C. Caro Farquenson, Gina D’Soto and Natalia Pérez. Additionally, the smoky, potent alto of Carolina Oliveros (from alt-Latin tropical futurism band Combo Chimbita) graces “Cha-Cha-cha pa’ ca”.

Last but certainly not least, the sonic quality of Caracoles was carefully ensured by Cuban engineer Jorge “Beny” Benitez, who apprenticed under Benny Moré’s engineer and has recorded a veritable who’s who of Cuban performers.