Product Description

Andy Palacio & The Garifuna Collective's 2007 album Wátina is one of the most praised world music albums ever released, and was selected by .com as the Greatest World Music Album of All Time (beating out Buena Vista Social Club, Bob Marley, Fela Kuti and other worthy contenders). On the cusp of tremendous fame, Andy passed away suddenly a year after Wátina was released, leaving the world to wonder just how big he could have become.

Palacio's band has continued where he left off, and with Wátina producer Ivan Duran of Stonetree back at the helm, have produced the album Ayó, a soul-stirring collection of songs inspired by their unique Afro-Amerindian cultural heritage. With a lineup that consists of the best musicians in the fertile Garifuna music scene of Belize, Honduras and Guatemala, The Garifuna Collective promises to carry the torch of cultural preservation and promotion passed on by Andy Palacio far into the future. The Garifuna Collective's songs of heartbreak, hope and joy will move your body and your soul.

Review

Gently percolating, sashaying polyrhythms thread their way through a delicate, dreamy lattice of acoustic and electric guitars, creating a warm, translucent backdrop for one of three different lead vocalists. The music has some familiar Caribbean flavors sometimes Cuban, sometimes reggae but the stuttery grooves, characterized by forceful patterns on maracas and scraped turtle shells, are distinct to the Garifuna, who live in parts of Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Belize. --Chicago Reader

It's a resilient, groovy, somewhat more modern expression of Garifuna culture, a subtle update of the soulful sounds of black Central Americans. It's also proof positive that the band's polyrhythmic, slinky music is not only surviving but flourishing. Ayo means goodbye and the album features some tributes to Palacio and another departed member, Justo Miranda, yet it's ultimately quite upbeat. Ayo is sure to appear on lots of world music year-end Best Of lists. --vita.mn

The album has references to reggae and blues but is its own animal. Lyrics in the native vernacular are delivered by a succession of male and female singers. Some of the songs feature just electric guitar and percussion behind the vocals; others feature what s essentially a full rock band lineup. The title track is like soukous, but edgier; the second shuffles along with a Spanish Caribbean lilt. The ridiculously catchy third one has a bit of a reggae feel, which then comes front and center on the next track, a sort of minimalist, shadow image of what Bob Marley did with Could You Be Loved.

The next tune blends elements of rocksteady and salsa over a slinky Afro-Cuban inflected groove; the one after that reminds of the original Wailers version of Peter Tosh s Get Up, Stand Up, but with a gorgeous turnaround that takes the song to a delicious crescendo. The rest of the album includes a dusky, otherworldly, chromatically-fueled slink, a more wary take on American hackysack pop, a ridiculously memorable, scampering tune that works its way from subtle polyrhythms to hints of dub, a couple of scurrying, minimalist, apprehensively echoey numbers and a tensely bouncing concluding cut that brings to mind the Ventures classic Diamond Head. The purposefulness of the playing is stunning throughout the album, no one percussionists, guitarist, bassist, drummer and electric keyboardist wastes a single note. --New York Music Daily