Picking up where salsa's golden age left off in the late '70s is the mission of Bio Ritmo.
"The purity of intent and the spirit of experimenting with this music has since been unmatched," says singer Rei Alvarez. "Since that time, salsa has fallen victim to commercialism, and with that comes limitations for both the music and lyrical content."
Indeed, the widely heard salsa of the airwaves is plagued with predictable progressions and shallow, unoriginal lyrics. "The Salsa Machine," as Bio Ritmo calls itself, writes songs using elements from the classic age, keeping within the style while retaining the spirit of experimentation that once gave salsa its strength. A clash between Afro-Cuban dance music and jazz in the hands of the Nuyorican culture gave birth to the music, and according to Bio Ritmo it could have gone further if not for the machinations of the commercial music industry, which seeks to keep the general public in "musical oblivion" and provides predictable sales. Therefore the "Underground Salsa" of Bio Ritmo. —Courtesy Calabash Music
