In villages near Venezuela’s capital, Caracas, the descendants of slaves have kept African music alive even if the language they sing is Spanish. On their debut album, this village parranda (“party”) band brings a big cohort of drums, maybe even hollow tree trunks, to bare on their declamatory songs. As the rhythms pound furiously, the elegantly phrased, powerfully voiced singer Betsayda Machado soars in call and response with a chorus of village voices. Loé Loá is uncompromisingly local and uncontrived with no accommodation for trendy “world music fusions.”
