Tudo Está Bom

Back in 2009, Playing for Change became an unexpected global success. It involved street musicians from across the world (and a few celebrities like Bono) recording well-known songs, which were mixed together in an album that became a Top Ten hit in the US and led to a Glastonbury stage show. The Argentinian musician Enzo Buono worked as producer, engineer and cameraman on the project and now – after time spent at a meditation retreat in India – he has formed a relaxed and gently upbeat new four-piece to create music of ‘calmness and love.’

In Kosmik Band he is joined by a female compatriot La Charo, the gloriously laid-back Brazilian singer Nanan and Twanguero (aka Diego García), a guitarist from Spain whose style explains his nickname. Their music is easy-going, cheerful and impressively slick, with its blend of tight, rhythmic playing, harmony vocals and twanging electric guitar. Along with the Latin influences there's a dash of Congolese rumba on ‘Mama’, and a reggae treatment of ‘Casa da Floresta’, with help from some of Damian Marley's band. ‘Tudo Está Bom’ (All Is Well) is relentlessly charming, pleasant and upbeat, and Twanguero only gets a chance to stretch out on the final ‘Peça a Deus’. And it could, I suspect, prove to be another commercial triumph for Buono.