David Virelles

With Mbókò, pianist-composer David Virelles – based now in Brooklyn but born and bred in Cuba – has taken the folkloric rhythms of Afro-Cuban religious ritual and transmuted them into a 21st-century music resonant with mystery and meaning. The main title, Mbókò, can be taken to mean “fundament” or “sugar cane” or “The Voice.” That’s not the human voice, but The Voice that is believed in Abakuá culture to be the Divine Voice. Sound is an element revered in this culture, and that idea – the worship of sound itself – was the central idea in the performances of Virelles’ compositions on Mbókò. The album’s subtitle – „Sacred Music for Piano, Two Basses, Drum Set and Biankoméko Abakuá” – indicates both the ritualistic intent of the 10 pieces and their sound, with the piano featured alongside dual bass drone (played by Thomas Morgan and Robert Hurst) and the polyrhythmic percussion of a traditional trap set (Marcus Gilmore) and the all-important four-drum biankoméko kit (Román Díaz). Virelles has tapped into a musical impulse that is simultaneously ancient and modern, communal and personal, meditative and propulsive. Mbókò casts a spell.

PERSONNEL:

DAVID VIRELLES, piano
THOMAS MORGAN, double bass
ROBERT HURST, double bass
MARCUS GILMORE, drums
ROMA´N DIAZ, biankomeko

Recorded December, 2013 at Avatar Studios, New York

TRACKS:

01 Wind Rose (Antrogofoko Mokoire´n)
02 The Scribe (Tratado de Mpego´)
03 Biankome´ko
04 Antillais (A Quinti´n Bandera)
05 Aberin~a´n y Aberisu´n
06 Seven, Through the Divination Horn
07 Stories Waiting To Be Told
08 Transmission
09 The Highest One
10 Èfé (A María Teresa Vera)