Straight out of Havana, Cuba comes Orquesta Akokán. Akokán is a Yoruba word used by Cubans to mean “from the heart” or “soul” and Oh! do they bring soul to the stage. The band is a joy for both first-time audiences, who will find it almost impossible not to move along with the deeply soulful mambo and Cuban music lovers alike, who will appreciate the sounds reminiscent of pre-revolution Benny Moré.

The eponymous album is 100 percent original songs yet sounds exactly like authentic 1940’s and 50’s session. Recorded at the historic state Areito Studio with Cuba’s finest players and led by the dynamic veteran singer José ‘Pepito’ Gomez, it is a tribute to the sax and brass-driven orchestras of times gone by that operated like one giant rhythm machine.

New York label Daptone was all about soul, funk, afrobeat, rhythm’n’blues and reggae until pianist Michael Eckroth set foot in the Areito studios in Havana and this new Daptone project was born. The legendary studio was built in the early 1940’s to exact audio specifications by a recording engineer and has hosted nearly every noteworthy Cuban musician since then, including the recordings of Buena Vista Social Club in 1996. There is nowhere else in the world that has a contributed to a country’s musical identity quite like Areito Studios.