Working In Cuba

EGREM, Santiago

EGREM is the state studio, and the Santiago room has recorded a large part of what the rest of the world thinks of as Cuban music. Analogue desk, high ceilings, everyone playing together in one space because that is how the room is built.

It was very hot, and there were people coming in and out all day. It was one of the best experiences I have had: a working studio, full of noise, with that much history in it. Compay Segundo recorded there. Eliades Ochoa recorded there. So did everyone before them.

The Compadres

The Compadres came together in 2023 with the Cuban musician Joaquín Solórzano. The band plays son, guajira and bolero with an electric guitar in the middle of it, which is not the usual arrangement in either tradition.

Every one of the Cuban players has a long career behind him in the son of Santiago, and every one of them has played with the best there was. They are among the last living musicians of that tradition, and they are not a revival of it — they are what is left of the thing itself.

There are two line-ups now, one here and one in Santiago, and they are set out properly on the band page.

Alejandro Almenares

Alejandro Almenares is one of the last great performers of son and trova, with a long catalogue of his own compositions behind him, and a lineage that runs directly into the music the Buena Vista Social Club made famous.

When I decided I wanted to play Cuban guitar properly, I went to his house and had lessons from him. Everything I play on the instrument now is informed by those lessons. We are recording together.