Galaxia Tropical (Gate)

On April 18, 2019, fresh off the plane in Iquitos, I jumped into the taxi of an elderly gentleman and explained that I had come to the Peruvian Amazon to find Ranil. I know where he lives, " he replied, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. And before I knew it, I was no longer searching for the man - I was standing right in front of him. Ranil and I hit it off immediately and ended up spending a month working together on this project.Born in 1935 as Jorge Raúl Llerena Vásquez, Ranil's story begins in the Peruvian Amazon, in a corner where the sounds of the forest mix with stray radio waves from Colombia, Brazil, and Ecuador. After winning various local singing contests as a young man, he quickly understood that breaking into Peru's music industry - especially as an artist from "the end of the world" - would be no easy path. Years later, two albums recorded in the early 1970s with Los Silver's became cult treasures. When the band dissolved, the lead guitarist Limber Zumba and Ranil teamed up and recorded a demo that they took to Lima in search of a recording company. Returning disappointed from the capital - where unacceptable conditions had been proposed - Ranil decided to start his own label, Producciones Llerena, something unheard of in this part of the Peruvian Amazon. With a rotating cast of brilliant musicians by his side, Ranil crafted a sound that locals lovingly called "llullampeo" - imaginative, unpredictable, and fabulously unrestrained. His percussionists wove grooves that have not resurfaced in the region since, and the 14 songs presented here remain some of the most vivid document of that fearless, free-spirited, often psychedelic ensemble.