[Cover photo credit to Black Haven Visuals]
Afro-Latino rock group Making Movies announces the June 17th, 2022 release of XOPA via Cosmica Artists and has shared the first single and video “Calor”, which brings Memphis Soul and Salsa to a classic love song, featuring organist Rev. Charles Hodges (Al Green) and the vocals of the Sensational Barnes Brothers. “Calor” is also going to be featured next month in the band’s PBS music documentary AMERI’KANA, to be aired in May 2022 in various markets.
Produced by Ben Yonas and mixed by Tchad Blake, the band’s fourth album Xopa features performances by Marc Ribot, Rubén Blades, David Hidalgo of Los Lobos, Jeremy Kittel, Martha Gonzales, Asdru Sierra, Dolores Huerta, and Alaina Moore of Tennis.
Founding singer, guitarist, and songwriter Enrique Chi comments on the new album:
It feels like we arrived at something. Our music is what happens when that Salsa blend stews for a couple of hours till you can’t recognize the ingredients. You don’t know what the originals were because they’ve all been cooked down together.
Enrique Chi and his brother, bassist Diego Chi, are Panamanian, and percussionist Juan-Carlos Chaurand is of Mexican descent, and they’re known already to underscore rock with Latin American rhythms played with their African etymologies highlighted, honored. Making Movies’ new drummer, Duncan Burnett brings to the blend a lifetime of playing Black Gospel, another genre of music with storied derivations in African traditions
The band employs a standard rock lineup of guitar/bass/drums/percussion, but the members also incorporate synthesizers, effects pedals, and indigenous instruments from Latin America into their music. They interweave styles as divergent as Cumbia and Blues, Salsa and Soul, Cuban son and Rock ‘n’ Roll.
Making Movies has toured extensively, appearing with the likes of Arcade Fire, Hurray For The Riff Raff, Bomba Estereo, Galactic, Flor De Toloache, and Thievery Corporation. The band is playing a week of shows at SXSW in Austin over the next few days and will be announcing more shows in the coming weeks.
