Frankie Reyes is the alias of Los Angeles-based electronic musician Gabriel Reyes-Whittaker. Working within a variety of genres, Reyes-Whittaker has released music as Gifted & Blessed, The Abstract Eye and as one half of the duo The Steoples. 'Originalitos' is Frankie Reyes' second album for Stones Throw.

Boleros Valses y Mas, his Stones Throw debut, is an album comprised of popular Latin standards, reworked by Reyes with an Oberheim synthesizer. His second album Originalitos is his own compositions performed in the same style. “I thought about how I might capture the essence of this theme using my instrument of choice, the synthesizer. What came to mind was to cover some of the classic Latin American compositions that I grew up hearing around me and have grown to love as I've gotten older, most of them in the bolero style but a few in the waltz, son, and even mariachi style.” By using audio-to-MIDI and sheet music-to-MIDI processing Gabriel has re-contextualized these popular tracks easily overheard while visiting any of Los Angeles' predominantly Latino neighborhoods with a single Oberheim synth. By removing the lyrics, the emphasis remains on the melodic, harmonic and rhythmic aspects of these classics, many still sung by Latin American artists today.
Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.
Artist biography from last.fm