It is in this bubbling Venezuelan oil city, crossroads between the Andes, the tropical forest and the Caribbean coasts, that the duo draws its influences. From this mixture, they create their electronic folk: a kaleidoscopic musical fantasy with a contagious groove.

At a time when Venezuela is in the grip of incessant political unrest, La Gallera Social Club reveals another face of this territory with multiple cultures by making us experience the theater from this end of the world. “Trópico Salvaje” the soundtrack of a journey where the energy of Latin American traditional celebrations as well as secular Amerindian and Afro-Venezuelan traditions are often thrown into a space-time fault. Here, the drums inherited from Africa and the Indian flutes are combine with steel-drums, the cosmic sounds of the 70’s mix with current digital
experiments, to bring out Afro-Latin-futuristic and decidedly danceable music.

In popular Latin and Caribbean culture, "La Gallera" is the place where cockfighting takes place. “Social Club” in reference to sharing and friendship. The two twin brothers Alexis and Miguel Romero, accompanied at the outset by Carlos Guilleń (now solo under the name of Caribombo), borrowed these references to name their group “La Gallera Social Club”.

Raised in the folk festivals of Maracaibo during the oil boom in the 80's, the two musicians will draw their inspiration from their inhabitants and music, cosmopolitan and mixed. Just look at the cover of "Trópico Salvaje", adapted from a painting by Ángel Peña (a Maracaibo painter), to understand that the two brothers go back to their roots, drawing on their heritage and their solid live experience acquired over the last few years.

Since their arrival in France in 2011, the band has been criss-crossing international stages to spread their unbridled sound. After their 3 acclaimed albums, the duo has multiplied hybrid projects (Tito Candela, Mantekiya or Maa NGala with Ablaye Cissoko) These encounters between different musical universes, have given the Gallera Social Club the keys to unify the ancestral and folk sounds of Venezuela with their psychedelic and electronic influences.

Manduco is adapted from the song by the famous Venezuelan singer Maria Rivas, an allusion to the mortar used by the mothers of villages whom sing during household chores, and is punctuated here by the percussion of a typical Afro-descendant music, the Gaita de Tambora, which finds itself propelled into a bewitching electronic dimension. This new approach preserves traditions by transposing them into the near future. Native songs and flutes are sucked into a humming digital ritual in the very powerful Moroka jia. On techno-latin house rhythms and deep groovy synths, Afro-Caribbean guitar turns and melodies are highlighted on Titiriji and sublimated by the steelpan
on Mariposa. A title named after a butterfly that gathers music from different parts of Venezuela such as cumbia or joropo. The cuatro, the country's emblematic four-string guitar, will flirt with the biguine and calypso cadences in Cecilia, a piece reminiscent of the warmth of tropical evenings on the country's coasts (these melodies were brought in the 19th century by West Indian workers who came to work in the oil industry and mining). The duo, supported by the famous music archiving institution ArchivOlares, carried out a real work of collection and research to transcribe in their compositions the traditional and folk heritage of Venezuela.

These sounds of emergency created by the African and Indian populations taking refuge in the forests and mountains, gave rise to resistance music that became real symbols throughout the territory. Indigenous spiritualities are highlighted on Tamoryayo, Canto de Amor, and also on Kuje. In this title, the song of a child of the Yukpa tribe celebrates the corn festival with electronic riffs and dancehall. The choruses and brass instruments mixed with atmospheric digital layers bring out the singular emotion that runs through the entire album, as evidenced by the fabulous Guacamayo, an ode to Afro-Venezuelan culture which draws its percussive rhythms mainly from maroons of Cameroonian origin who fled slavery in Latin America.

LISTEN ALBUM « Trópico Salvaje » (private link) : https://ffm.to/la-gallera-soundcloud.opr

Release from 5 june 2020 (Spotify, Apple, Deezer, Tidal …) https://ffm.to/tropicosalvaje.opr