Lo Bueno Está Aquí

Paulo Olarte and Sebastian Hoyos, the two Colombian expats who make up Contento, like to call their music ‘salsapunk.’ At one level this is classic dancehall music, built around the usual rhythmic structures and repetitive phrasing. But it gets a pervasive DIY treatment, with pared-down keyboards, gnarly bass lines, witty sonic jokes – a plinky sound like a drop of water here, an artful misquote from Led Zeppelin there and club-friendly beats that play around the claves. On several tracks notably ‘Loco Por Tu Amor’ – a driving synth and affectless vocals make you think of robots doing a funeral salsa (an image identifiable during nights out in Cartagena).

The title-track departs from the same idea but splices in layers of ultra-fast percussion and an infectious Afro-Cuban tumbao on piano. Four of the eight tracks (the first ‘side’ of the album) are pared down and cool verging on chilly, at least for salsa. Then on the fifth, ‘Paso Palante’, they show they can also do warm and melodious, with one foot in Africa and the other in the Caribbean, and their four hands on a brazenly smoochy alto sax. But the duo soon revert to their lo-fi, tongue-in-cheek deconstruction of modern salsa. Throughout, the singing is limited to chants and summons to move – though as a solo salsero, speeding on solipsism. Forget sultriness and the tropics, this is Latin music for Berliners and Genevans; no touching, no gender, no faking it.