Señor Coconut, the man of a thousand aliases, returns to amaze everyone once more! Following El Baile Alemán (dedicated to the German Electro pioneers Kraftwerk), Fiesta Songs (a joyful collection of popular songs including Smooth Operator, Beat It, Smoke On The Water) and Yellow Fever (a tribute to his Japanese fellow musicians of the Yellow Magic Orchestra) here comes his fourth trick in which the musical knight of the ‘Order Of The Coconut’ has worked on for almost a year in real and virtual studios.

Around The World would actually be a simple pop album if it was not for el Señor, alias the inimitable Atom™ as he is simply not interested in the easy route! If you are going to cover the pearls of international pop, you really have to contribute a powerful idea of your own and you know you’ve made it when the musicians you are covering themselves take part in the recording, as happened with the three members of the Yellow Magic Orchestra, Haruomi Hosono, Yukihiro Takahashi and Oscar and Grammy winner Ryuichi Sakamoto on the Yellow Fever album.

On Around The World Señor Coconut has again conjured “Electrolatino” songs from international hits. Once more he’s recorded with the big band, with which he’s been bringing his concepts to the stage on rapturously received tours for many years, to then take the recordings apart in his own studio in Santiago de Chile, reassemble them, surgically process each track, and inject that special Coconut magic. Long serving Coconut vocal collaborator Argenis Brito steps up to the mic for the majority of songs along with the crooner Louis Austen (the Viennese Frank Sinatra!) adding his touch plus Stephan Remmler, the legendary head of 80’s electro-popsters Trio, stepping forth to top it all off.

Atom™ has again adopted the perspective of an alien who, from Chile, his distant orbit, perceives the world as a remote place and not as his place of origin. For this purpose, Atom™ uses the technique of mash up or culture clash: an Austrian crooner sings on a Swiss Cha-Cha-Cha (Pinball ChaCha), a Japanese, Toshiyuki Yasuda, programs the computer part on a Brazilian Bossa Nova classic (Corcovado – Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars), and this voice does a duet with Argenis Brito, a Venezuelan singer who lives in Berlin.

The theme that all Señor Coconut albums share is Mambo, which is in turn an artificial product developed by the Cuban Dámaso Pérez Prado who lived, worked and died in Mexico and produced for the American market. It was he who brought together stereotypes from the widest imaginable range of sources to make “Latino” marketable for the first time, leading in turn to Mambo making the crossover to jazz and turning up in popular hits in Germany in the 50s and 60s. In La Vida Es Ilena De Cables a Latino big band arrangement clashes with Reggaeton-Rap and the Aciton sounds developed by Atom™. Aciton is a hybrid of Acid and Reggaeton. The track Around The World by the French band Daft Punk provides the background for this exceptional production, it is the common thread that unifies the album: electronica which is put back on its acoustic feet, all because Señor Coconut’s creative process is not a one-way street!

Around The World Track-By-Track Guide In His Own Words By The Maestro, Señor Coconut

Around The World

With Señor Coconut I receive a whole lot of ideas from outside – from friends, fans, and other musicians. My friend and valued colleague, Original Hamster, once mentioned “Around the World” by the French band “Daft Punk” and since then this track had been stuck in my head. But in parallel with this, there was another completely separate development which, however, coincides with “Around the World”: Thomas Baxter, the son of the legendary exotica musician and composer Les Baxter, asked me in 2006 whether I would be interested in remixing one of his father’s tracks (VOODOO DREAMS is included on this album as a bonus track). While I was getting absorbed in Les Baxter and listening to him closely, I discovered an album of his entitled “Round the World with Les Baxter”. The theme of “Around the World” began to take hold of me. It can certainly be said that “Around the World” – whether interpreted by Les Baxter, Señor Coconut, or anyone else – always reflects only a subjective view of the world, at best the view of a particular culture or cultural context. The world of Les Baxter is just as incomplete as that of Señor Coconut, defined by the time and place of our respective existences. After the title of the Señor Coconut album had been decided on, it was of course clear that Daft Punk’s “Around the World” would have to be the leitmotif. The track therefore appears three times on the album: as introduction, interlude and finale.

Sweet Dreams

Once “Around the World” had been established as theme and motto of the album, it was clear what the selection criteria for the songs had to be: the first prerequisite was that every track had to come from a different country. One track which had been in my thoughts for years for a Señor Coconut production was “Sweet Dreams” by the British band Eurythmics, purely and simply because it is rhythmically and melodically a perfect Cha-Cha-Cha. The ultimate criterion with Señor Coconut is always purely musical: “Does that give me any interesting ideas?” With “Sweet Dreams” the answer was “Yes”. Interestingly, I suddenly heard very clearly lines of the lyrics which I had not noticed at first, and which provided a curious cross-reference to “Around the World”: “I travelled the world and the seven seas… Everybody’s looking for something”.

Da Da Da

A few years ago I had the pleasure of doing a remix for Stephan Remmler, so we were already in contact. For one thing, Stephan likes Señor Coconut, and for another, the work on the remix reminded me of “Da Da Da”. I realised that “Da Da Da” was virtually crying out to be done as a Cha-Cha-Cha. Rhythmically and melodically it was clear where the musical journey should go. I asked Stephan if he would be interested in singing and he agreed immediately. I think that hardly any other German track from the 80s was as emblematic or as German as “Da Da Da”. In my opinion, the brilliant simplicity of the song makes it THE representative of Germany on “Around the World”.

Kiss

Again, it was Original Hamster who brought “Kiss” to my attention. Together with Argenis Brito, I translated the lyrics into Spanish and the decision was made to include this song on the album. The real fascination of this song is that, one the one hand, the original has no bass line and that, on the other, its charm lies in its simplicity (and that was the connection to “Da Da Da”). At the musical level, the challenge was to convey these two aspects in Señor Coconut style.

Corcovado

In Tokyo, I met a musician called Toshiyuki Yasuda (aka “Robo Brazileira”), who gave me a couple of his CDs. When I listened to them, I discovered parallels between his productions and my album “Midisport” from 2002, on which I took Brazilian music to pieces and reassembled it back to front. When I got into contact with Toshiyuki later, he said that my album had in fact influenced him greatly, and given him the idea of making synthetic Brazilian music. I liked his extension of my idea so much that I asked him to create a synthetic female voice for the Señor Coconut version of the Brazilian classic “Corcovado (Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars)”.

Que Rico El Mambo

In the original by Perez Prado is quite simply THE Mambo track par excellence. It was also high time to have Perez Prado appear on a Señor Coconut album, not just as a guiding spirit but directly. His influence on this project was very significant from beginning to end. There are Prado references on all the Señor Coconut albums, and he is probably my most important source of inspiration. It is interesting that Perez Prado is in no way a representative of Latin American “standards” but is characterised much more by having continually rejected these standards (apart from those which he himself created). Perez Prado compositions are remarkable not only for their unconventional arrangements and playing styles but also for their wit and simplicity.

Pinball ChaCha

Just as on “El Baile Alemán” and “Yellow Fever!”, a track which was originally electronic is here reinterpreted acoustically. This song is by the Swiss band Yello and was always a Cha-Cha-Cha. This is already enough to explain why it ended up on the album. Produced by Yello at the beginning of the 80s using one of the first samplers, the original version plays with elements which are typical of “exotica” such as sampled bird calls and forest sounds.

White Horse

And here again an idea was suggested to me. This time it was Argenis Brito who turned me on to the track. When I found myself short of uptempo tracks, and it occurred to me that “White Horse” in the original by the Danish combo Laid Back would be perfect as a Merengue, I knew that I simply HAD to cover it. “White Horse” is in fact a reference to cocaine (“If you wanna ride, don’t ride the white horse…”) a substance which is very popular in the Merengue scene and is without doubt responsible for the nervousness of this rhythm.

La Vida Es Ilena De Cables

With this track of mine I am falsifying history and arrogantly representing Chile on “Around the World”. “La vida es llena de cables” (Life is Full of Cables) appeared around 2001 on an album by “Los Samplers”, a Latino-Fake combo. The band, consisting of five Latinos, came together to make music which they had in their heads but which none of them could produce alone because they didn’t have the equipment. The original version, in the style of a digital Son (i.e. a downbeat rhythm) here becomes an uptempo Guaguanco (related to Cha-Cha-Cha and Mambo), while the central section is kept in the Aciton style. Aciton is a hybrid of Reggaeton and Acid, an artificial creation dreamed up by the Surtek Collective. This at least really does come from Chile and is the result of a meeting of minds between Original Hamster and me.

Moscow Discow

We return to the starting point: a journey around the world. The Belgian formation Telex produced “Moscow Discow” at the start of the 80s. Interesting here are the parallels, both thematic and in terms of sound, with Kraftwerk’s “Trans Europa Express”, which had already been covered on Señor Coconut’s “El Baile Alemán”. It is related in terms of time and space not only with Kraftwerk but also with Yello, up to and including the musical approach: original and fake. This track was selected by reason of all the interrelationships and for the fact that it is a fine Cha-Cha-Cha/Rumba.