Los Apartamentos have been spreading Jamaican mento folklore in and around Cologne since 2016 - from private pool parties to international festivals. Now it’s time for the next phase, the release of the debut album „Water Di Garden.“

But how do six 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.

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.

The city of Cologne offered the perfect hotbed for this band. Pubs are all around, acoustic live music is cherished not only during the world-famous Carnival season. At every time of the year audiences love to sing along if a chorus is as infectious as „Ooooh what a night, not a bite, What a Saturday night.“ („Linstead Market“)

Then, out of the blue, came an offer from Chuck Wren of Jump Up Records in Chicago to record an album. Chuck, whose label has been running since 1993, was on the lookout for new bands to continue his Calypso series, and found a live video by Los Apartamentos on the Internet.

Dutch musician and producer Boss Van Trigt (Boss Capone, The Upsessions) agreed to produce the album and made sure that the original vibe was not disturbed by modern studio equipment or perfectionism. The whole was finished at Masons Arms Studio with the help of Hanno Schattow in just two weekends. The recordings were done like in the old days: One microphone, and (nearly) no overdubs. It’s all about the fun.

https://losapartamentos.bandcamp.com/
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