Fusion music built with cuban links
Who They?
London-based collective who mesh live electronics and Cuban influences. Their name translates as “noise” from the Yoruba language. The group consists of Iranian electronic composer Pouya Ehsaei with percussion from Latin Grammy-winning Hammadi Valdes from the group Irakere and Oreste Noda from Sambroso Sambroso.
Why Ariwo?
Their self-titled 2017 debut EP with trumpeter Yelfris Valdes featured long tracks of intense Latin percussion workouts, echoing, sonorous trumpet, dubbed-up bass-heavy electronics, clanking electro rhythms and deep house. This vibrant, bold music may have been conceived in London, but it approximates what it must feel like to wake up at 3am in an after-hours improvised all-nighter at the intersection of Miami’s Little Havana and Bass scenes. Key track ‘To Earth’ is a slow-building fourteen-minute jam that the word “epic” was intended for, all processed effortlessly live by Ehsaei into an alien sonic sofrito.
Tell Us More…
New single ‘Pyramid’ sees them bidding farewell to Yelfris Valdes, whose final trumpet contributions to the collective can be heard here. Titled to express the power of trios in Yoruba music, ‘Pyramids’ finds the group hitching constantly-evolving electronic and live percussion to Valdes’ wavering, funereal trumpet playing; the denouement to this questing, meditative new direction is a final section full of sinewy acid house bass and King Tubby springy reverb that operates just on the edge of control.
‘Pyramid’ is out on Manana
