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Meridian Brothers - "Metamorfosis (feat. Grupo El Renacimiento)" from the 2022 album Meridian Brothers & El Grupo Renacimiento on Ansonia Records.

For Eblis \\xc1lvarez, frontman and figurehead behind Bogot\\xe1 band Meridian Brothers, the imaginary is a primary source of inspiration. His latest record, and 11th since the band\\u2019s inception in 1998, is a collaboration with a fictional band called Grupo El Renacimiento. Creating an entire backstory for the band, \\xc1lvarez claims them to be a 1970s salsa group from a small village in Colombia who had a small amount of fame but then were forgotten after the band delved further into drugs and partying.

But that\\u2019s not the only story on Meridian Brothers & El Grupo Renacimiento. There\\u2019s also a Kafka-esque storyline on today\\u2019s Song of the Day \\u201cMetamorfosis,\\u201d in which the formerly-human protagonist wakes up to find themselves transformed into a robot. \\u201cMemory is dying,\\u201d reads the English translation of the lyrics. \\u201cThey\\u2019ve already connected the internet to my lung /To my heart.\\u201d

\\u201cSalsa singers in the \'70s, they used to sing about, you know, like, actual problems,\\u201d \\xc1lvarez told NPR in an interview. \\u201cSocial problems, political problems, human problems of emotional problems. So I decide to imitate that attitude - \\u2018Metamorfosis\\u2019 - that tells about this dystopian world where technology takes over the human brain, takes over the human body, takes over the human societies and control it.\\u201d

This record is also important because it marks the first release in 30 years from long-standing label Ansonia Records. Created in 1949 by Puerto Rican immigrant Rafael \\u2018Ralph\\u2019 P\\xe9rez, the New York-based label was the home for a surprisingly large, diverse, and important catalog of seminal recordings featuring traditional and popular Latin rhythms and sounds. Genres such as m\\xfasica j\\xedbara, plena, bomba, danza, son, guajira, bolero, danz\\xf3n and merengue are well represented, as are guaracha, mambo, cha-cha-cha, pachanga and boogaloo.

Watch the lyric video (in both English and Spanish) for \\u201cMetamorfosis\\u201d and read the full post at KEXP.org.

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