I didn’t know any of Systema Solar’s music before hearing they were due to play at Future Yard, so thought I’d listen to a few of their tracks on YouTube to get a taste of their ‘alternative Latin’ music.
From the opening bars of Yo Voy Ganao (‘I’m Going To Win’) my head was bobbing away to an unequivocal summons to party. It’s a joyous sun-drenched creation with a video to match, the accompanying text stating the song is “an ode to traditional fishing culture”, now endangered by tourism.
It’s a feat they repeat visually with their 2016 release Rumbera (a title that roughly translates as ‘Female Party Animal’) – more totally infectious dance music, this time accompanied by a video of women of various ethnicities, young and old, cis- and trans-gendered, celebrating the variety of womanhood.
Tumbamurallas, meanwhile, is on the one hand yet another insanely catchy tune, but also a call for everyone who hears it to tear down the walls that separate us.
According to Wikipedia, Systema Solar takes elements of Colombian music such as champeta, bullerengue, and cumbia, and fuse them with Pikós (sound system) influences and flavours of hip-hop, house and techno. It’s a match made in heaven, if that heaven is one where the angels have mastered microphones, swapped their harps for synths, and learned to use their halos as turntables.
The fact that Systema Solar combine these irresistibly danceable beats and melodies with lyrics that (after translation) reveal just how socially conscious they are adds a further layer to my appreciation of their artistry.
None of which is to say that their music is in any way po-faced or ‘worthy’. Yes, they addresses the struggles that come with poverty, threats to the environment, and the plight of immigrants (amongst other issues); but they do so without ever losing sight of the value of making people want to dance. Though the sounds aren’t especially similar, it’s an ethos and an energy that brings to mind the best of Afrobeat.
I was a little shocked to see Yo Voy Ganao was released in November 2014. How has it not been on permanent radio rotation ever since? The band have played several huge festivals, including Glastonbury, and even featured on the soundtrack of Fifa 2017, so they’re hardly underground. Perhaps I’ve just been listening to the wrong radio stations.
However I’ve managed to miss it, were it not for the rest of the brilliant Systema Solar back catalogue that I’m still working my way through, I’d be happy to hear the band to play that track and nothing else on a loop for the whole of the Future Yard gig.
Maybe I’ll see some of you there – I think it’s going to be quite a party . . .
Systema Solar play Future Yard in Birkenhead on Thursday 19th June, after their gig at Bristol’s Jam Jar on the 18th, and before appearing at London’s Jazz Cafe on June 21st.
