Enjoy the rumba at Timbalaye

The rumba is a gale that takes everything. With it disappears the anxieties and the fear, and when listening to it few of us can avoid that the sound animal that takes refuge in the deepest part of our being is undressed.

The Cuban group Timbalaye, baptized by the people as "the explosion of the rumba", reincarnates in our contemporaneity the fever of this rhythm that, with the stroke of a drum, moved from the 18th century the bodies of our African ancestors. In his new phonogram Timbalaye is me, the group embarks on a trip to the seed, at the beginning of everything, to the patio of the site, to the Cuban street.

Attachment to the traditions, sound heights, complex linked timbres and the necessary renewal of the lyrics and instrumental codes, in tune with contemporary popular slang, are undeniable elements that guide the current work of Timbalaye and promote their second album.

The general production is by Frank Oropesa, director of the National Septeto Ignacio Piñeiro, and bears the signature of the Casa disquera cubana EGREM. The line that follows this record is sister to the previous production of the group, The bat was split (2017), winner of the Cubadisco Prize.

The phonogram gives in perfect mixology the three main styles of the genre: columbia, yambú and guaguancó. There are fifteen songs that give free rein to the spontaneity of the dancers and make their feet go away. Timbalaye makes that clear Openning, the song that opens the album: "Bring you a timba that bursts and promises to be spectacular"

The seal of Timbalaye is indisputable. While the rhythm usually marks the key in the rumba, this group transits over a broader instrumental spectrum, relying on the use of raw voices and a serious one for harmonization.

A matrix element that provides organicity to the style of the album resides in the way of structuring the songs in introduction, body, chorus and coda. If you let yourself be carried away by the loudness of each number, you will not find it difficult to realize the intensity variations of the percussive work. There we have the example of the subject Be aware, an urban rumba of heart with sweat of the Cuban street, where the choirs have a leading role.

Timbalaye allows us in delicate balance to domesticate the present while looking towards the past. I felt that with New proclamations, a song that can not be missed if the purpose is to overwhelm with the natural grace that bequeathed us the privilege of having been born on this Island. As they say: "If you press the buttons you start to guarachar"

What is better and shines in this album? Personally the song This is my rumba, where the group privileges, with the virtuosity of its drum beat and the spectacularity of the choirs, the essence of this rhythm. In this theme they claim to sing to the genre with the melody of their hearts, rooted in folklore and without losing sight of the contemporary.

Although most of the songs are originals of this group, on the album we can find a well-worked adaptation of the song When the pleasure ends of Alexander Pires, that Timbalaye manages to take to the code of the rumba in a decorous manner.  

Despite the polyphonic richness of this phonogram, it should be noted that in the song Handsome and wad a certain imbalance is perceived between the choirs that, because they are so recharged, obscure the rhythm of the key and make the fifth a member almost absent among the flourishes.

However, the result is a record of excellent musical bill. Much has been overcome the group since its founding music director Nelson Lopez Carrillo. At that time, they were boys from the neighborhood of Juanelo, the capital municipality of San Miguel del Padrón, united by the common interest of shaking drums, without knowing that they would soon become a reference of this mother rhythm, today Intangible Heritage of the Humanity.  

It does not matter that the streets are not the same, it does not matter that we are not the same. The rumba will always have the ability to get through the ears. Dancing and dancing with the body hot and tired. Believe it, someone tells you that he thought that his hips were not made to move with this runaway rhythm, someone who thought that an eight minute rumba (The richest tradition) it was going to seem too long for my ears, and it ended up being too short for my feet. To my surprise, I ended up shaking my shoulders and putting the last letters, all while listening to Timbalaye.