© Bomba Estereo
On November 16th, Colombian band Bomba Estéreo will present their latest album 'Deja', a danceable ode to the earth and its four elements, at the Ancienne Belgique. The group continues to carve out its niche in a universe that combines electronic music with traditional sounds from their native Caribbean.
Singer Li Saumet and musician Simón Mejía are back. After a four-year break due to their international tour and the pandemic, 2021 and 2022 mark the Colombian band's return. In addition to their album Deja, released last year, the group has been working on a number of collaborations, most recently with Bad Bunny and Manu Chao. Describing Bomba Estéreo's style is not an easy task, as the group takes great pleasure in exploring the richness of the Latin American musical palette. On a base of electronic music, influences from cumbia, reggaeton, rock, reggae or champeta alternate. The whole thing is guided by Li Saumet's unique voice, with its impressive flow, oscillating between singing and rap.
For their eighth and latest opus, recorded for the most part in the Colombian mountains of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta during the confinement, the group wanted to reconnect with the Earth, through the use of local instruments, outdoor recordings and texts about the Colombian environment, often threatened by man.
The pandemic also allowed the group to reignite its use of electronic music. During these long months of forced distancing, technology went from being a cold tool to the only way for human beings to be connected to their emotional world. Electronics became organic and this is felt on the tracks of Deja, a quadriptych around air, water, fire and earth where the waves of the Caribbean, the birds of the forest, the sound of rivers, monkeys, insects and the cycles of the sun can be heard. For the mixing of Deja, they collaborated with Canadian producer Damian Taylor, who is also responsible for the latest work of Björk and Arcade Fire.
Since its inception, the band has been fusing electro with more traditional Colombian sounds. They even see it as a continuation of their country's cultural history. For the band's singer, "music in Colombia has always been fusion music. From the moment the Afro-Colombians merged with the indigenous people, then with the arrival of the whites and finally with foreign music. I think that Latin America, because of colonization, has always been a continent of multiple influences. And Bomba Estéreo comes out of that. These are processes that have been going on for many years. The Colombian Caribbean is exposed to all kinds of music: from the Caribbean itself, from the United States, from Africa... It is a point of confluence”.
It's not surprising that the group invites Nigerian afropop singer Yemi Alade on the album, as a testimony to the common cultural background between Africa and the Caribbean. Although the melodies are rhythmic and catchy, Bomba Estéreo's songs are not meaningless. The group even intends to reconnect with the spirituality that many indigenous communities attribute to dance. Dancing to reconnect with Nature and with oneself. A connection that returns in the last track of the album, Mamo Manuel Nieves, named after the shaman who advocates a return to the essential in the Arhuaca language. This subtle balance is the key to the Colombian band's international success since the release of their third album, Elegancia Tropical, in 2012, which included the hits Pure Love and Qué bonito. In 2018, Bomba Estéreo even reached the world's Top 500 most listened to artists on Spotify.
On stage, the attention paid to visuals and costumes perfectly conveys Bomba Estéreo's universe. In 2018, they recorded their first live show in Dublin, when they opened for the band Arcade Fire. They have played at the biggest festivals in Latin America, as well as at Coachella and Lollapalooza in the United States, but the band has never performed in Belgium before. Their date at the Ancienne Belgique is therefore the perfect opportunity for the Brussels public to discover the world of Bomba Estéreo.
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