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Subtitled: Legendary Latin Club Tunes. On Coconut FM, your host is Señor Coconut, the alter-ego of the legendary German electronica wizard Uwe Schmidt (aka Atom Heart, Atom, etc.). Released by Germany's Essay Recordings, the label behind the popular Rio Baile Funk: Favela Booty Beats and Bucovina Club compilations -- Señor Coconut takes you through a tour of Latin America's alternative electronic music. Welcome to the Cocovina Club: congas and Casios? Puerto Rican rap and Spanglish splutter? Booty beats and Spanish guitars?! This must be Coconut FM. No, not Chilean microhouse, or Mexican psychotrance... we're talking genres like funk carioca (baile funk), cumbia, reggaeton, and oddball fusions of them all. Señor Coconut has explored these alternative dancefloor sounds -- music you might call Latin mutant disco -- and has pulled together a collection of songs from all over Latin America, from the Caribbean to the Southern Cone. All these genres share a common ground: they're all music of the people -- of the favela, the barrio, the villa. Funk Carioca is Rio's version of Miami bass, a furious fusion of electro beats and Portuguese rapping, shot through with rave, shameless samples, and bonkers sound effects. Six hot tracks from Vanessinha & Alessandra, Malha Funk, Os Carrascos, DJ Alexandre, Bonde Neurose, and Vanessinha Picatchu. Funky, fast, cheap and out of control -- it's adrenaline for the airwaves. Reggaeton -- the bastard child of Jamaican reggae, American hip-hop, and Panamanian and Puerto Rican barrio culture -- is one of the fastest-growing styles around. Tracks range from Tego Calderon's lazy "Cambumbo" to Peter Rap's electro-funk flavored "Punta." Also, Don Atom himself, aided by the Chilean rapper Tea Time, melts down reggaeton in a vat of acid techno. Cumbia -- originally a Colombian genre, took root in working-class villas and morphed into cumbia villera. It may sound the most traditionally "Latin" of any of the music here, but tradition, as Coconut FM proves, is a twisted path indeed. Gladys weighs in with kooky circus antics, and Los Pibes Chorros takes cumbia into gangsta territory with their boyz-in-da-villa anthem, "Llegamos Los Pibes Chorros." Whatever the case, wherever you come from, prepare to be surprised. If you're a Latin music aficionado, this record will give you a cross section of styles you won't likely hear in any one place. Coconut FM's signal picks up an urgent, strident cheekiness you probably haven't heard since rave's earliest days.
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