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Colombia has had its fair share of problems over the years, but the kaleidoscopic video that accompanies Contento’s second single from their new album, Lo Bueno Está Aquí, focuses on all that’s still there to be cherished: the beauty of its natural world and people, and of course its glorious uplifting music. While a small boy and his mother gather plastic litter to be up-cycled later into colourful flower pots, the child’s mother dances on screen with a big radiant smile. And why not indeed? With its ringing guitar and keyboards, the new single creates a feel somewhere between Colombia’s Pacific coast and Central Africa. It’s hypnotic, insistent and utterly irresistible. Contento call their music salsapunk and, on this particular number, the vibe is there in the crazy vocal refrain repeated ad nauseam and recalling the off-kilter sound of the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s Staff Benda Bilili.
It’s smart, witty music with a deceptively simple home-made aesthetic. A member of Acid Coco and Contento, who has recorded under both his own name and various other guises, Geneva-based Paulo Olarte describes how they create a sound palette from “what we have to hand” to fashion “a new salsa sound that may also make [their audience] discover some of the older sounds, too.” Appropriately, he met his colleague and compatriot, Sebastian Hoyos or Sano, at an Eddie Palmieri concert in Berlin back in 2011. Former resident of Medellín and now based in Barcelona, DJ and producer Sano has released his own brand of minimalist Latin house for the ultra-hip Cómeme label in the German capital. The pair discovered a shared passion for salsa and eventually took enough time off from their own projects to try out and perfect the “retro-smart” blend of cumbia and Nuyorican boogaloo (with a dash of soukous) evident throughout the album’s eight tracks.
And what’s in a name? Contento: happy, contented – which is exactly how this expatriate duo like to make people feel. They achieve that in spades over the four vibrant minutes of “Paso Palente”. If the music is, as Paulo Olarte suggests, “lo-fi with a super-clean production”, that makes the new video an ideal accompaniment. The entire world is fraught with problems right now and we need more music like this to keep us happy, sane and upbeat.
lyrics
ponte los zapatos pa’ que vaya a camina’
por la montaña
ponte los zapatos pa’ que vaya a camina’
con mucha maña
yo lo se y un paso palante
yo lo se y un paso pallá
yo lo se y un paso palante
yo lo se y un paso pacá
credits
released October 25, 2020
Contento son Paulo Olarte Toro & Sebastián Hoyos Velez
Músicos invitados en Paso Palante: Saxofón KitchuDub y Tiple German Cañellas.
Mastering Carvery Studio
Diseño Gráfico Mateo Corral
Paulo and Sano aka CONTENTO had so many friends in common that it was like they knew each other for many years before they
actually met. In 2011 they finally had the pleasure of seeing their faces for the first time. This happens in Berlin at a concert by the master Eddie Palmieri at the House of World Cultures and it set a precedent....more
New from the great label El Palmas: This buoyant cumbia-surf single from El Dragon Criollo, with a breezy, danceable B-Side. Bandcamp New & Notable Aug 30, 2021