National Geographic Music (National Geographic)

Manu Chao is putting the finishing touches on La Radiolina, his eagerly awaited first new studio album in six years. Chao has produced the album with the help of mixers Mario Caldato (Beastie Boys, Jack Johnson) and Andrew Scheps (Red Hot Chili Peppers, Mars Volta). As of today, the album's first single, "Rainin in Paradise" is available for free download at www.manuchao.net.

The forthcoming album is Chao's first since the live Radio Bemba Sound System (2002) and his first studio release in the U.S. since Proxima Estacion: Esperanza, which in 2001 topped the European charts and was named one of the best albums of the year by Rolling Stone magazine. Proxima Estacion was preceded by equal fanfare for his debut album, Clandestino (1998), which remains one of the best-selling albums in French music history, with more than 2.5 million copies sold to date.

In the interim since his last album, Chao also earned tremendous acclaim for his work producing and guest starring on Amadou & Mariam's Dimanche Bamako. In 2004, he created Sibrie m'etait contee, a primarily acoustic recording with lyrics in French, released with a book featuring drawings by Wozniak.

Manu Chao is widely acknowledged as a pioneer of Latin alternative music, which he was making as early as the 1980s as the leader of Mano Negra. His music is multilingual and broadly multicultural, blending rock, reggae, punk, ska, found sounds, and more. The Paris-born, Barcelona-dwelling artist of Spanish descent finds inspiration in street cultures everywhere.