Tropidélico

UK producer Will Holland moved to Cali, Colombia in 2007 and recorded parts of this next-step album from Quantic Soul Orchestra, expanding the straight-up retro funk and soul sound of previous QSO outings into Colombian music traditions like Cumbia, and embracing Cuban Descarga. So the chicken-scratch guitars and fatback drumbeat of, for example, “Panama City” recall a James Brown-style funk jam, but the congas are high in the mix, there are extensive timbales licks and the horn lines and fluttering flutes have more of a Latin boogaloo flavour. Like all of Quantic’s retro work, it’s a sound that benefits from modern production, managing to sound authentic like the ’60s and ’70s records it draws influence from while also possessing serious sonic heft. Tropidélico’s move from funk and soul into the QSO’s Latin phase resulted in a joyous, steamy, tropical, sultry album with extremely high danceability levels.