Agua del Sol

It’s easy to forget Hijos de Agüeybaná are from Puerto Rico. Their sound recalls the percussive rhythms and call-and-response patterns of much West African – particularly Ghanaian – music.

As with much Afro-Latin music, the story began when African slaves were first brought to the region. In the case of bomba, the Puerto Rican version that Hijos de Agueybaná prove themselves adept interpretors of here, the style has maintained much of its African identity. The sound is built around vocals and booming barrel drums, with a variety of percussion sounding in the background, adding a vital sense of movement to the songs. On the majority of Agua del Sol, the band stick to this traditional format, with a warm, crisp production bringing out the vocals and dextrous drumming. It’s this production which raises the album above any field recording of bomba. There are even a few attempts at bringing the style into a modern musical landscape, with dashes of cuatro guitar on ‘Loren’, a salsa backdrop for the title-track and even a jazz version of ‘Te Invito’, a song that sounds like a deadringer of ‘Iko Iko’. They’re all worthwhile exercises that keep the album entertaining throughout, but ultimately they are just exercises, with the real interest here being the traditional bomba, which will please many fans of traditional African and Latin music, and once again prove that there is something incredibly infectious about the cultural exchange between these two regions.