- Last year's Manana Festival in Santiago de Cuba was an ambitious project from the off. The three founders battled bureaucracy and organisational headaches to hold the first music festival of its kind in Cuba's second city. (The trials and successes of the first edition were chronicled in a feature by Angus Finlayson last year.) But it wasn't just the location that set Manana apart—it was also the desire to tap into traditional Cuban styles like son and rumba, facilitating collaborations between local musicians and foreign electronic acts. A year on from the festival, Manana brought some of its collaborations to the Barbican last Friday, showing the results to an audience outside Cuba for the first time.
The first half of the show grouped Santiago band Obbatuké with British electronic duos Soundspecies and Plaid. Obbatuké were a force to be reckoned with as five percussionists beat out dizzying rhythms, including one who led with a lilting clave rhythm—the backbone of most Afro-Cuban music. Both of their collaborations, however, felt like awkward fits. Soundspecies' sampled drum loops fell flat compared to the crack of live drums on stage, and their ambient additions added little flavour to the sound. Plaid's collaboration suffered more, with placid synth notes dampening the impact of the band. I would have preferred to see Obbatuké on their own, without the shaky electronic accompaniment.
The third act, Ariwo, were far better. A Cuban-Iranian collaboration based in London, they had two drummers on either side of the stage, a wiry-haired man behind a bank of machines and a trumpeter up front. Their fusion of processed vocals, live Afro-Cuban rhythms and jazzy trumpet solos was an instant success, each track spinning out with a psychedelic edge.
The final show from DJ Tennis felt average. Tito's singing and Alayo's rapping didn't add enough character to Tennis's big room beats. Only when Tito took to the drums, or when Ariwo trumpeter Yelfris Valdés appeared, did it pick up any momentum.
Afterwards I wondered why Ariwo's cross-cultural collaboration worked so well when the others seemed lacking. Maybe it's because they're a band in their own right, who produce and rehearse together, rather than a collaboration put together for the express purpose of a festival. Ariwo captured an improvisatory dynamic between electronic and acoustic musicians that was absent elsewhere. If the other collaborators spent more time playing together, they might find somewhere new to go with their sonic fusions. After all, Ariwo proves that it's possible.
Photo credit /
Genki Nishida