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Los Amigos Invisibles
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In a nutshell
Los Amigos Invisibles are a band from Venezuela - relocated to New York City - that plays a blend of disco, acid jazz and funk mixed with latin rhythms. They are often labelled as “Jamiroquai with a latin twist”.
In August 2006 their 5th album titled “Super Pop Venezuela” - a collection of Venezuelan covers produced by famed DJ Dimitri from Paris - was released in the USA by Gozadera records and quickly earned them a Grammy Award nomination for “Best Latin Rock, Alternative or Urban Album”.
The band is currently finishing its follow-up album (a live album!) and plans to tour Europe later this year/ early next year.
Biography
The Venezuelan band is comprised of Julio Briceño (a.k.a. "Chulius", vocals, percussion), José Luis Pardo (a.k.a. "Cheo" or "DJ Afro", guitar, songwriting), Armando Figueredo (a.k.a. "Odnam", keyboards), Mauricio Arcas (a.k.a "Maurimix", congas, percussion), José Rafael Torres (a.k.a "Catire", bass), and Juan Manuel Roura (a.k.a. "Mamel", drums, percussion).
In 1995 they released their debut album, “A Typical and Autoctonal Venezuelan Dance Band”, which was a huge success in Venezuela. They played in clubs around Caracas for the next two years until David Byrne's Luaka Bop label signed the group and released “The New Sound of the Venezuelan Gozadera” in 1998. Two years later came their third release, “Arepa 3000: A Venezuelan Journey into Space”. In 2000 they relocated to New York City and in 2003 they released their masterpiece “The Venezuelan Zinga Son, Vol. 1” (Luaka Bop released the album in 2004 in the U.S.) which was nominated for the Latin Grammy in the category of Best Alternative Latin Album.
2005 saw the Venezuelan release of “Super Pop Venezuela”, a collection of Venezuelan covers produced by famed DJ Dimitri from Paris . The album was released in August 2006 in the U.S. by Gozadera records and quickly earned them a Grammy Award nomination for “Best Latin Rock, Alternative or Urban Album”.
While the album was praised as an “Exceptional”, “Supercharged” album of “Pure dance-floor heaven”, their live shows were also getting rave reviews:
• “Los Amigos Invisibles are indefatigable party-starters in both their native Caracas and their adopted New York. The band latches on to grooves from across the decades... the music is a testament to smirking international cool... Versatility is Los Amigos' most winning trait... with a rhythm for every occasion” – NY Times
• “Los Amigos Invisibles emanate pure groove… walking bass lines, percolating percussion, scratchy guitar and relentless drums of a band that knows no difference between arty fun and sensual fire” – Rolling Stone
• “[LAI] get audiences lathered up into a licentious Latin dance frenzy…anyone who has seen the group live can attest [to] Los Amigos as a genre-jumping musical powerhouse” – Miami New Times
“Super Pop Venezuela” was chosen by the editorial staff of Amazon as the only Latin album to make the top-10 of “The Best Music of 2006”. Positioning Los Amigos Invisibles alongside artists such as Bob Dylan, Neko Case, KT Tunstall, John Mayer & Gnarls Barkley, Amazon called the album a hilarious, booty-shaking journey into the group's seductive, endlessly inventive brand of lunatic genius. Likewise, "Super Pop Venezuela" was also recognized in the Chicago Tribune's Year-End Latin music Top-10.
The band is currently finishing its follow-up album (a live album!) and plans to tour Europe later this year/ early next year.
(source: www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Amigos_Invisibles & John Reilly - Rogers & Cowan / edited by Quentin Geerinckx )
