Cartel Navidad

If there is an actual sonic intersection between the natural world and music, then Navidad de los Andes, the collaborative recording between master bandoneonist and composer Dino Saluzzi, his younger brother, saxophonist Felix Saluzzi, and German cellist Anja Lechner has perhaps found it. The brothers have been playing music together for over 60 years; Lechner has been working with the elder Saluzzi since Kultrum in the mid-'90s. Felix and Lechner were both featured soloists on Saluzzi's 2009 orchestral recording El Encuentro. That said, these previous recordings were but preparation for Navidad de los Andes, a collection of "tunes" where the boundaries between compositional jazz and structured improvisation blur.

Following on from their legendary and award winning (MOJO magazine compilation of the year) "A Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble (Exploding In Your Mind)" DJ series, The Amorphous Androgynous have started a parallel series called Monstrou Bubble Soundtracks which aims to explore groovy sub genres of the MPB concept, but rather than DJ/compile, they write and produce all the material themselves in a classic soundtrack vein. The first one is The Cartel which is a study of psychsploitation (where psychedelia meets blaxploitation) and traces the lineage from Lalo Schifrin, Quincy Jones, Curtis Mayfield, John Barry, Ennio Morricone through to Oceans 12.
Aided and abetted by a stellar cast including Noel Gallagher himself on bass and guitar plus Raven Bush (of fast upcoming Canterbury folk psych band Syd Arthur) on violin plus the Amorphous Androgynous themselves…

Star tenor follows critically acclaimed Deutsche Grammophon recording of Mozart’s La clemenza di Tito with his first Christmas album for the Yellow Label Feliz Navidad extends great tradition of seasonal albums by Fritz Wunderlich, Luciano Pavarotti, Plácido Domingo and Bryn Terfel.