Alex Cuba: the kind of Static In The System we like
New album Ruido En El Sistema out in September.
Live at Jazz Café 18 September.
Of all the songs on Alex Cuba’s forthcoming album, it’s the one about war that’s the closest to the Cuban Canadian’s heart. It is called ‘Unanime’ (‘Unanimous’ in English), and took the length of the Iraq War to compose, the first words penned as American troops set foot on Iraqi soil back in 2003, and the last notes recorded as the few remaining troops withdrew almost a decade later. “It is a song that’s an emissary of peace,” Alex says, “the album starts in a peaceful way and ends in a peaceful way. We have so much noise in our lives these days, that we need to find peace, and music is a way of doing that.”
The latest album is Cuba’s fourth, and as the title ‘Ruido En El Sistema’, or ‘Static In The System’ suggests, it is a journey through the many musical and geographical landscapes that shape and form Alex Cuba’s style and delivery with newfound clarity.
Equally bewitching in Spanish and English, Cuba’s songs, like the softly sung ‘Por Donde Vas’, are richly woven with the colourful thread of Cuban musical heritage. Equally, Cuba’s Canadian pop and rock influences are firmly felt, with punchy guitars and rhythms that feel at home in Canada’s bars, most acutely felt in the boisterous ‘Are You.’
The catchy Spanish duet with Nelly Furtado ‘Nadie Como Tu’ provides the final finishing sparkle to a cultural and musical evolution, Furtado’s vocals perfectly offsetting Cuba’s, with his signature bass guitar playing style always in the background.
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