The Pop Corporation

It’s hard to sound original when there’s been so much music released, ever. However, Daniel Villareal is one of the most original musicians on the planet and you should get into him right now.

Melding psychedelic jazz with dubs, post-rock, samba, spiritual music, electronics, and the kitchen sink, Villareal is a truly formidable and very, very fun artist to have around right now. Ambitious and insanely musical, this isn’t music for the weak willed BUT there’s nothing inaccessible about it. Listening to difficult music never felt so joyful and easy.

Based in Chicago but Panama born, Villareal is a drummer and DJ and, according to the wonderful Mondo Jazz radio show on Radio Free Brooklyn, is prolific and hard-working, and you’ll always find him in one of Chicago’s clubs or bars playing records or manning the stool for someone, with a baby-blue Mercedes parked outside. On his ‘Panama 77’ LP is what we’re focusing on right now though, and while we’re slightly late on it, it’s one of the most electrifying releases you’re going to hear this year.

It’s a freewheeler of an album, which sometimes reminds you of Tortoise and their brassy best, but then switches to something that reminds you of Tenorio Jr’s samba jazz, before changing lanes into fuzz guitar and spicy bop. It’s enough to make your hair stand on end with wonky timings, silky rhythms, and a gang of musicians clearly enjoying themselves. There’s even time to musically visit German Komische music, library music and ’70s psychedelic soul.

It’s all your favourite sections of your record collection, cooked into one stew. It’s really remarkable stuff.

LP opener ‘Bella Vista’ is humid spiritual jazz, breaking into ‘Ofelia’ which is a heavy Latin take on something uniquely Villareal’s, hopping around the musical map and making you want to dive headlong directly into it.

He said: “I see my life and my music as a collaboration of improvisation and intention all in the spirit of community and joy.”

You can hear it. Most jazzers say things that intellectualise their music and it can feel annoying in a cute way, but Villareal isn’t an average jazzer. In fact, he might not be a jazzhead at all. He’s joyriding through funk, hip hop, Cumbia, free rock, and all the other genres we’ve mentioned earlier, because this is a body of work made by a free man.

Elsewhere, he said: “We celebrated how weird it was even though we weren’t playing the same groove together – it came out in a strange, wonderful way that surprised us.” Given that there’s a track called ‘I Didn’t Expect That’, you can tell this is no lie.

And that’s the thing. Inventive, original and a real hodgepodge of styles sure, but this album is a celebratory listen. There’s loads of great bits hiding in the grooves and each listen gives you a little more every time. It’s sensational stuff. Maybe being a percussionist, it allows the LP to roll along and not lose sight of the heartbeat of the music that maybe a melodic virtuoso might lose? As off-kilter as sections of the music are, you might still want to dance or nod along sagely. There’s a humility to it all that you get with a drummer, while simultaneously and gently removing your brain and launching it deep into space.

You can buy the album on Bandcamp, or it’s in the record shops and on streaming. Don’t miss out on this rare talent. Go and flip your wig.