Words by Justin Turford

Tempered and sharpened in the fire of live performances and touring, bassist, bandleader and champion of Afro-Venezuelan traditional music, Raúl Monsalve, announces ‘SOL’, his spectacular new album on the always essential UK imprint Olindo Records.

Before the release of his acclaimed third album ‘Bichos’ (also on Olindo Records), his Forajidos (‘The Killers’) were a cover name for what was essentially, a studio project for Raúl and various high calibre guests such as fellow Venezuelans, Luzmira Zerpa (Family Atlantica) and Betsayda Machado who both featured as vocalists on ‘Bichos’. The current incarnation is now a road and studio-tested BAND with a rock solid heart that includes vocalist Lya Bonilla, keyboardist Edgar Bonilla, Colombian saxophonist Andrés Vela, and drummer Mario Orsinet from Seun Kuti's incarnation of Egypt 80.

His first album releases showcased Raúl’s signature identity from the off. An expertly researched and played mash up of psychedelic funk, sideways boogaloo, afrobeat, jazz and various Caribbean and Latin influences: as much indebted to Manu Dibango as Willie Colón, his rich globally-infused sound the sound of wide-eyed and sharply observed boundary-pushing.

With an exceptional list of guests on the record, ‘SOL’ certainly draws less heavily on the past, even the parts that have obvious vintage influences feel fresh, firing and futuristic. On hand is UK drummer and producer Nick Woodmansey AKA Emanative, fellow Paris-dwellers Kiala Nzavotunga (the great Congolese guitarist and former member of Fela Kuti’s Egypt 80) and Tony Allen’s last musical director Yann Jankielewicz, who shares production credits with Heliocentrics’ Malcolm Catto, an equally impressive musical visionary.

The opening track on the album, ‘Fuego al Campanero’, sets out the band’s new vision with daring vividness. Electrical shimmers of synthesisers, a fat digital clap and an assassin’s bass line harness the bright, taut funk of the 80s’ around a core groove of traditional percussion and an epic, hook laden call-and-answer vocal led by the celebrated Venezuelan singer Carlos Tález. Evolving and revolving around a simple trippy synth riff that forces its way into your head, there’s nothing else out there quite like this.

The second single, ‘Como el Sol’ is an extraordinary reconstruction of John Coltrane’s ‘Like Sonny’, Coltrane’s tenor sax replaced in part by a full horn section and also with the addition of magical solos by guest flautist Amina Mezaache, the original song’s quintet swing now powered by hypnotic layers of quitiplás (the tubular bamboo percussion peculiar to Venezuela), the master musician Gustavo Ovalles leading the bateria with surgical precision, the stripped down percussion and vocal chanting finale robustly spiritual. I reckon Coltrane would have dug this if he was still present on this plane.

The Emanative-penned palette cleanser ‘Hamaca’ is a jungle sound bath of percussion rhythms and the boisterous noise of (sea?) birds, the melodic percussive elements sounding as natural to the environment as the presence of the wildlife.

“At its heart, SOL reflects a theme of rebirth and perseverance. The sun — representing renewal, consistency, and radiant energy — is a profound symbol in the album, echoing the vibrant June 24th celebrations of Saint John the Baptist in Venezuela’s coastal regions. These festivals, which align with the summer solstice, embody resilience, cultural identity, and spiritual freedom, paying homage to Afro-Venezuelan ancestors who resisted oppression through music, dance, and unity.”

‘Machete No Hace Piquito’ is a lusty, muscular afrobeat meets Afro-Venezuela bomb with an incredible percussion and drums foundation, wild vintage synthesisers and intricate guitar and bass interplay between Kiala and Raúl. Following the blueprint of classic afrobeat, the song builds and builds in power through heavy brass section punches and fabulous solos (Julien Matrot on trumpet, wow!) before the vocals appear midway, Lya Bonilla’s full-throated evocation to a flower so sturdy, it can not be cut down, is delivered with fiery and passionate authority. There’s a lot of afrobeat fusion being released these days but this track is one that the others should be judged against, the energy levels are something else!

Percussion-heavy and hallucinatory, ‘Ofrenda’ appears like a ritual - the ‘offering’ of the title suggesting a ceremony of sorts. Like a Babatunde Olatunji track recorded in Barlovento (the coastal sub-region where quitiplás originated), layers of brilliantly played polyrhythms exude the stories of the African presence and influence in Venezuela. But there’s an added discordancy as an abrasive synth punctuates the groove, a dark psychedelic edge heightening an already dramatic atmosphere.

The duet between Carlos Tález and Lya Bonilla on ‘Recuperar El Vuelo’ is bare of all instrumentation except for a responsive, atmospheric orchestra of shakers, bells and light touch mbira/balafon rumbles and hits from Emanative. This leaves the heavens to be filled by these two great voices in conversation as though singing to each other from the heights of two separate hilltops, stunning in its stark grandeur.

‘Tiempo Que Se Va No Vuelve’ (‘Time that goes away doesn't come back’) is a driving vocal and percussion ensemble number that despite its sub-two minute length feels like a number intent on blowing an audience to pieces. Intense vocal interplay from Lya and guest vocalists Maroa Guerrero and Rafael Mejias are motored along by the dynamic rhythms of Gustavo Ovalles and company, a hint of drum machine and whirring technology a force-multiplier to this demanding dancer.

Despite its title, ‘Calipso Time’ is actually a brilliantly recharged interpretation of an early Fela Kuti track called ‘Highlife Time’ from when he led ‘his Koola Lobitos’ back in the mid to late 1960s. Commissioned for Fela Day in Amsterdam Paradiso Noord, Raúl transplanted the Nigerian highlife energy of Fela’s original to the El Callao region of Venezuela, an area where workers from Trinidad & Tobago and other neighbouring islands in the Caribbean settled (hence the calypso influence). Removing the vocals, Raúl and his Forajidos have crafted a sinewy, vibrant mesh of Venezuelan calipso, Latino brass and West African melodies. As always, Mario Orsinet’s drums are majestic, the horn arrangements rock solid and spirit-lifting and the inclusion of Dionis Bahamonde on the Venezuelan calypso drum, the bumbac and the cumaco impregnates another layer of history into the music, a music that lest we forget came from the enforced movements of enslaved African people to the Caribbean region by the amoral European empires and their profit-driven providers.

As bright and energy-giving as the Sun actually is, ‘SOL’ is an inspired album that pushes forward Raúl and his superb band’s vision to new heights. Giving voice to Afro-Venezuelan traditions and firmly positioning them in the colliding worlds of jazz, funk, Afrofuturism and global fusion, they are surely reaching headliner billing on the festival circuit. Raúl’s personal ethnomusical mission to share and extend the rich sonic and historical vocabulary of his country’s complicated DNA is just one of the many reasons to praise this record, the main one being, of course, how brilliantly composed, performed and produced the album is. Exceptional. 10/10

Released on 21 March 2025 on Olindo Records

BUY HERE! https://monsalveylosforajidos.bandcamp.com/album/sol