BEHIND THE HAVANAELECTRO SOUND The Cuban musicians involved in the recording were friends of the TrebleFive crew as well as studio musicians met along the way. Our marimbula player Oscar Aleixi Rojas for instance, was discovered after hearing him play one evening at a local street café. His trance-like rhythms played on this bass toned boxed instrument resonate on our changui-style track Guantanamo. Singer and tres player Francisco ‘Paquito’ Tunon was a key part in many sessions, his voice only matched by his vibrancy and keen interest in the fusion of such different sounds, a bold new approach to “mi musica” as he would say. A multi-instrumentalist and a working street musician all his life, his tres and spirited vocals feature alongside the brassy licks of Jimmy Bosch and Malcolm Aiken on the album’s opening track Dejala. The urban hip hop sound remains largely an underground phenomenon in Havana. The crew was keen to explore this facet of street culture and feature it alongside some of our west coast talent. On the track Dancehall Mambo we introduce young Cuban MCs Damy Flow and el Chulo, whose lyrical flow and street swagger are matched by the gritty verses of Canadian spoken word artist C.R. Avery. One of the central contributors to the development of the project’s Cuban contingent is 80 year-old Cuban congero Francisco ‘Panchito’ Moret, resident of the Los Sitios district in Central Havana and percussionist with the Cuban sextet Tanta de Los Guaracheros. Panchito took a fatherly role in the project, and along with his son Freddy graciously introduced our crew to other members of the Havana music community, while sharing his deep knowledge of Afro-Cuban rhythms from over 60 years of playing music across the island. As congeros, Panchito and Freddy are featured on tracks Vedado Blues, Dejala and La Vida.