Joshua P. Ferguson
FORTIFIED Del Solar, fourth from left, feels the band is better than ever thanks to its new label.
Photo: Yayo Lopez
Listen to Coba Coba, the latest album from nine-piece electronic Afro-Peruvian ensemble Novalima, and its authenticity immediately strikes you. Fueled by four percussionists battling it out on congas and bongos, as well as the native Peruvian cajon and cajita, the band commingles traditional rhythms—marinera, landu, festejo—with decidedly U.K. dance styles such as broken beat, drum ’n’ bass and dubstep. Electronic music flirting with world rhythms, be they African, Brazilian or Latin, is nothing new. But whereas many of the best-known projects—think Thievery Corporation—are outsiders looking in, Novalima is a progression of a rich musical ancestry.
“Afro-Peruvian music is something we’ve all listened to since we were kids,” explains Grimaldo Del Solar, DJ, producer and all-around man in charge of Novalima’s electronic side. The 37-year-old Lima native spoke via phone from a hotel in Stockholm, where the band was resting up prior to a performance. “It’s more traditional music, not something kids will go and buy on CD, so it was something we felt was being lost over time.”
Shortly after moving to Barcelona postcollege, Del Solar was drawn to electronica’s incorporation of world-music rhythms. “All these things I was listening to had some traditional music from different parts of the world mixed in. I thought, Why don’t we put some Peruvian stuff in our work, no?” As Del Solar’s enthusiasm builds, more and more of his sentences end with that punctuating “no?”
Del Solar conceived the project with childhood friends Rafael Morales, Ramon Pérez Prieto and Carlos Li Carrillo. Hailing from Lima, they all came from musically inclined families. “Rafael’s great-grandmother collected a lot of traditional street music that was being lost to time and wrote about it,” Del Solar says. All the same age, the four guys grew up playing together in various bands. “We had some metal bands when we were kids, alternative rock, psychedelic rock,” Del Solar says. “We also listened to a lot of jazz and Latin music. All this has helped us have a broader style.”
Eventually, the four went their separate ways—“we just liked to travel and we wanted to live in the more modern cities of the world,” Del Solar explains—with Morales in London, Li Carrillo in Hong Kong and only Pérez Prieto still in Lima. Because of the distance, the early days of Novalima, formed in 2001, were tricky ones. Most of the songs on its first album, Afro, were written and recorded in pieces shot from one band member to the next via the Internet.
In 2005, the band signed to the London-based label Mr. Bongo, which garnered Novalima licensing opportunities—it contributed a track to the famous Buddha Bar series—and recognition from DJs and producers. Many of these artists, such as Da Lata and Kiss FM’s Patrick Forge, Seiji of Bugz in the Attic and Faze Action, contributed to last month’s remix album, Coba Coba Remixed. Novalima is now signed to Putumayo offshoot Cumbancha. “They sign artists more than albums,” Del Solar says. “That is hard to get nowadays.”
Currently, the band is in the middle of a world tour, with many stops along the world-music festival circuit, bringing it an audience beyond the DJ-driven market. The response has been especially positive in Peru, where Novalima is regularly tapped for cultural events. “Younger people are starting to appreciate their own music in a new light,” Del Solar says. “Not only that but a lot of older people—who don’t like that you re-create or change their music—have good feelings about Novalima. It doesn’t hurt that they know our musicians are the best in Peru.”
Novalima plays Millennium Park Thursday 23 with an after-party DJ set at Sonotheque.
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