Goshinboku

Amazing what keyboards, electric bass and occasional percussion can achieve. It helps, however, to have a guest like the acclaimed South African artist Sibusile Xaba on four of the six numbers. The Cuban-born and Barcelona-based Yadira Ferrer also lends her stirring voice: she transforms the electronic beats of the longest track, ‘La Ceiba’, supplied by composer and arranger Anthonius, into a rather more substantial slice of contemporary son. The French vocalist MISS GI starts things off nicely with the charming opener, ‘La Démon de la Forêt’, inspired by Studio Ghibli's delightful animations and driven quietly along by Daniel Fernández’ electric bass.

But it's Sibusile Xaba who is the real star of the show. His impassioned vocal fleshes out ‘A Night in Belice’, a tribute to Wally Badarou's brand of highlife, while the two tributes to 1980s Afro-disco, ‘Sunrise in Lagos’ and ‘Disco Zulu’, might have been more repetitive and less notable without his contributions. Fittingly, it's Xaba who rounds off the album in style on the final track, ‘Mamá’, which surprisingly throws some Japanese voices into the mix – perhaps because this new Madrid label is supposedly committed to ‘Japanese culture as [its] essence.’