https://youtu.be/oNpTLaJQGEo

Let’s dive into the extraordinary world of Matanzas. Led by Don The Tiger’s deep, expressive voice, we'll find out how Cuban bolero can smoothly collide with experimental recording techniques, how the spirit of Andalusian processions can coexist with video game music, and how Catalan sardana can morph into a cubist strain of ambient music. We'll also encounter murderous sharks, doomed relationships, parrots & pirates, and even a fisherman of the disappearing Aral Sea.

Don the Tiger is the solo project of Adrián de Alfonso, an ubiquitous presence in Barcelona's underground until recently, and the nomadic guitarist who has played with the likes of Lydia Lunch, Mark Cunningham, Robert Forster and Carla Bozulich.

Having relocated to Berlin, Don The Tiger now takes inspiration from everything he misses in that city - be it rumba, MPB, baroque fantasy, guabina, flamenco or Fania Records- and mixes it with musique concrète and elaborate sampling techniques, delivering it all in a way that owes more to primitive rock'n'roll than to anything else.

Described by Don The Tiger as “a dive into melodic exuberance after years of experimental music-making”, Matanzas is his second album to date. It was mixed and produced with the help of revered Colombian pop experimentalist Lucrecia Dalt.




Adrián de Alfonso on Matanzas

Matanzas is a coastal town in Cuba known as the birthplace of the rumba, a secular genre of Cuban music involving dance, percussion, and song, grounded on African traditions, as well as on the Spanish-based coros de clave. Matanzas is also the region of birth of Arsenio Rodríguez, who gave the raw tradition of the rumba an unexpected twist by mixing it with tres, double bass, and piano, turning it into something more melodic and setting up the foundations for a new kind of son montuno. The possibility of such twist gave me the spark to start.......
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Let’s dive into the extraordinary world of Matanzas. Led by Don The Tiger’s deep, expressive voice, we'll find out how Cuban bolero can smoothly collide with experimental recording techniques, how the spirit of Andalusian processions can coexist with video game music, and how Catalan sardana can morph into a cubist strain of ambient music. We'll also encounter murderous sharks, doomed relationships, parrots & pirates, and even a fisherman of the disappearing Aral Sea.

Don the Tiger is the solo project of Adrián de Alfonso, an ubiquitous presence in Barcelona's underground until recently, and the nomadic guitarist who has played with the likes of Lydia Lunch, Mark Cunningham, Robert Forster and Carla Bozulich.

Having relocated to Berlin, Don The Tiger now takes inspiration from everything he misses in that city - be it rumba, MPB, baroque fantasy, guabina, flamenco or Fania Records- and mixes it with musique concrète and elaborate sampling techniques, delivering it all in a way that owes more to primitive rock'n'roll than to anything else.

Described by Don The Tiger as “a dive into melodic exuberance after years of experimental music-making”, Matanzas is his second album to date. It was mixed and produced with the help of revered Colombian pop experimentalist Lucrecia Dalt.




Adrián de Alfonso on Matanzas

Matanzas is a coastal town in Cuba known as the birthplace of the rumba, a secular genre of Cuban music involving dance, percussion, and song, grounded on African traditions, as well as on the Spanish-based coros de clave. Matanzas is also the region of birth of Arsenio Rodríguez, who gave the raw tradition of the rumba an unexpected twist by mixing it with tres, double bass, and piano, turning it into something more melodic and setting up the foundations for a new kind of son montuno. The possibility of such twist gave me the spark to start.......
more