Apartamentos, Los
Water Di Garden (clear Blue)
Los Apartamentos have been spreading Jamaican mento folklore in and around Cologne since 2016 - from private pool parties to international festivals. But how do seven gentlemen from Germany warm to the nearly forgotten first original sound of the Caribbean island? The answer is: The musicians all have a past in ska music, reggae's forerunner, and mento's predecessor in Jamaica. They have been recording artists in various groups like The Braces, Monkey Shop, or Kapelle 3. And there must have been a general feeling of being stuck that caused them to dig deeper and deeper in the island's musical traditions. A new angle would just be cool. It started with Winston who is a double bass player building a rumba box from scratch in his backyard. This instrument builds the backbone of any mento band. At the same time, Ali traded his guitar for a banjo. And every other week more musical friends joined this purely acoustic venture, most of them on instruments they hadn't played before. It felt liberating not to use microphones in rehearsals. A setlist was compiled by listening to those old one-microphone recordings from the 1950s in Jamaica, often only accessible via youtube or on rare compilations. Names like The Ticklers, Lord Fly, Count Lasher, and Lord Flea were praised, and their styles absorbed, as much as possible. This is a repress of their sold out debut album from 2019 and now pressed on clear blue vinyl.