Ancestros Sinfónico is X Alfonso's New Album

May 25, 2022

Thirty-five years after Síntesis charted the course of one of the iconic maps of Cuban music, X Alfonso has called his family to retrace that path to reach a new world. The result is Ancestros Sinfónico (FACMusic), a work that is both homage and reinvention, and will be available on all digital platforms starting Friday, May 27.

During the pandemic, Alfonso took advantage of the pause to revisit the monumental work that the band founded by his parents released in the late 80s. Through an impressive recreation exercise, he transformed the 10 pieces into a symphonic suite, with arrangements inspired by works of authors connected to the band's history such as Carlos and Eme Alfonso, Esteban Puebla, Lucía Huergo, and X himself, and for which he had the advice of the legendary composer Leo Brouwer.

The result of this round trip –recorded between Portugal and Havana, mixed and mastered at El Cerrito Records, in San Francisco–, is a fascinating invitation to rediscover the legacy of a legendary group like Síntesis.

Those familiar with its trajectory will be able to identify and be surprised by the new destinations these classics of the group's repertoire lead to, while those approaching for the first time will have a luxury insight into one of Síntesis's most impressive works.

Ancestros Sinfónico is a love story; of a son for his parents, of a family proud of its legacy. A family capable of reinventing a country through music, once more.

Album notes, written by Leo Brouwer:
It is nothing new to say that Síntesis is one of the most prominent musical groups of its generation (not only from Cuba but from the world). I remember in the late eighties their first album Ancestros which continued the saga with a second and third installments.

Roldán is spoken of as the composer who included for the first time (around the twenties of the past century) African percussion instruments in academic music.

We speak of Síntesis as the first group to fuse Afro-Cuban ritual music with contemporary pop music (jazz, rock, electronic, folk, world music, popular Cuban genres) with the highest quality, playing with sound experimentation, but above all, avoiding clichés.

Síntesis has made an appropriation of the most authentic African music expressed in its Afro-Cuban rituals (transcultured). With a most respectful elaboration of Yoruba (Lucumí) music, of its rhythms and chants (done in "language"); they are at the same time transgressive by nature in desacralizing their original ritual function. Síntesis was captivated by the dramaturgical potential of these musics, African first, Afro-Cuban later and from them has crafted its own "poetics" connected to contemporaneity.

Without a doubt, they are a stylistic paradigm.

In music of African origin, the profane and the sacred are very linked. A kind of "popular religiosity" is situated at the thresholds of Cuban daily life.

X has selected nine of the main orishas (among warriors and head orishas) such as: Elegguá, Oggún, Oshosi, Babalú Ayé, Changó, Obbatalá, Oyá, Yemayá and Oshún to make up this album (based on the original Ancestros). The phonogram opens with Lázaro Ros, our greatest apkwón, who leaves us in a trance with his initial prayer (in Aggo Moyugbá).

X proposes to us a musical-cultural interweaving (African chants, symphonic sonority, gospel choirs, batá drums, current compositional language) leading to a postmodern aesthetic. The result? Unsurpassable! X displays a notable, authentic experiential inheritance with his roots. I feel immeasurably happy. Thank you X for allowing me to be your accomplice in the birth of this gift for Carlitos and Ele; for Síntesis for its legacy; for our Black music.