“Listening to Criollo Electrik is to be first struck by the fact that it does incorporate words to be – not sung so much as chanted. Somehow, to say that this is “African” begins to sound dismissive even before the word is uttered. That word, after all, has been given a continent, it is true, but being African is about all of our collective humanness. This “humanness” is another aspect of the record, Criollo Electrik. It is vibration before it becomes music, so that when it does become music, played principally on guitar and bass, with keyboards and all manner of drums. However, the vibrations – each throb actually – comes from the unintelligible (to us) syllable sung by Adan de Dios, Emelina Reyes Salgado and Teresa Reyes Salgado.” — Raul da Gama

“It’s a flashback to the ’50s and ’60s for Vintage Italia, a various artists compilation featuring well-known songs of the era performed in some cases by the original artists and in other cases by contemporary artists covering the classics. Highlights include the swinging “Boccuccia di Rosa” by Fred Buscaglione, the playful “Piccolissima Serenata” by Jula de Palma and “Ninna Nanna” from American group Pink Martini. Instrumental cut “Cristina’s World” by Emanuele Tozzi is another seriously-swinging dance number, and just in case you’re feeling a little shy about hitting the floor, the CD liner notes considerately include something that may help with that: a recipe for the Italian cocktail Sgroppino.” – antiMusic

Newly Brooklyn-based, trumpeter, composer, and bandleader, Rachel Therrien already boasts an enviable CV. Known for her very personal signature, she has developed a reputation as a highly-skilled, versatile and creative artist. Winner of the 2015 TD Grand Prize Jazz Award at the Montreal International Jazz Festival and the 2016 Stingray Jazz Rising Star Award, where she presented her second album Home Inspiration, “an emotionally charged show filled improv and exceptional musical orchestration” -FIJM. Therrien just launched “Pensamiento” her new afro-colombian inspired jazz album recorded with 12 musicians in Bogota, Colombia, and she’s starting the production of a third album with her Montreal Quintet.

“For the wonderful Québécoise musician Rachel Therrien, stepping out of her comfort zone of her Jazz-inspired quintet, Afro-Colombian music must have been a rather beckoning challenge. But like everything the trumpeter is known to do, she immersed herself in it body and soul. The result is a vivid expression of herself in an undeniably Afro-Colombian persona, complete with a very scorching tone, viscous timbre harvested in a palette of colours that come to life in the greens and rusts of Colombian Pilón, Champeta, Puya and the myriad of other rhythms that flavours the musical topography of that magnificent country. However, Therrien’s predilection for the Jazz idiom is never very far away. As a result of this a truly imaginative osmotic process takes place in Pensamiento where, with a group of viscerally exciting Peruvian musicians Proyecto Colombia becomes a jazzy excursion as much as it does a rustic Colombian adventure.” — Raul da Gama