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Soundway To Release Batida LP
The Quietus , February 9th, 2012 09:07

Batida is the first contemporary artist album to be released by the excellent Soundway label

Soundway are set to release the self-titled debut album by Batida on 26th March. A project of Pedro Coquenão, an Angolan/Portugese DJ/producer, Batida's tracks blend samples from 1970s Angolan music with syncopated kuduro-type beats (the sort of bounding rhythms that have traveled far beyond Africa with the likes of Buraka Som Sistema, as well as influencing urban dance music styles across the globe). During the making of the album he then sent many of these beats out to MCs in Lisbon and Angola.

“Being half Angolan, half Portuguese gives me that chance to try to translate the countries to each other, on a small scale of course," Coquenão said of the context of the album. "It’s impossible now a days to live in Lisbon and not to talk about crisis. Likewise it’s impossible to have friends and family in Luanda and not include the political and social problems that the city has.”

You can listen to album track 'Algeria' below.

Batida is particularly interesting because it's the first contemporary artist album to be released by the label. Over the last few years they've put out many fantastic compilations of South American, African and Caribbean music from the sixties and seventies, and their cumbia compilation Cartagena! made it into our best compilations of last year list. This first contemporary release apparently signifies the beginning of a new phase of Soundway's development, and they're set to continue releasing new music from this point onward.