Making Movies Announces ‘XOPA’ Due June 17 via Cosmica Artists || Shares “Calor” Single
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| Afro-Latino rock group Making Movies announces the June 17 release of XOPAvia Cosmica Artists and has shared the first single and video “Calor.” Watch/share “Calor” via YouTube. |
| Memphis soul and salsa sensibilities come together in “Calor,” the band’s approach to a classic love song, featuring organist Rev. Charles Hodges (Al Green) and the vocals of the Sensational Barnes Brothers. “Calor” is also going to be featured next month in the band’s PBS music documentary AMERI’KANA, to be aired in May 2022 in various markets. Explosive riffs, urgent lyrics, and rumbero rhythms take flight on XOPA. Produced by Ben Yonas and mixed by Tchad Blake, the band’s fourth album features performances by Marc Ribot, Rubén Blades, David Hidalgo of Los Lobos, Jeremy Kittel, Martha Gonzales, Asdru Sierra, Dolores Huerta, and Alaina Moore of Tennis. |
| This record transcends sonic heydays, connects long-ago and geographically distant cultural histories, and, in the process, delivers a sound that is undeniably future-forward. XOPA does more than challenge stale musical mores; it eschews them all together to make room for a broader vision of what music can be. |
| “It feels like we arrived at something,” says founding singer, guitarist, and songwriter Enrique Chi. |
| XOPA is, of course, a nod to sopa, the Spanish word for soup. “Our music is what happens when that Salsa blend stews for a couple of hours till you can’t recognize the ingredients,” Enrique says. “You don’t know what the originals were because they’ve all been cooked down together.” |
| Enrique and his brother, bassist Diego Chi, are Panamanian, and percussionist Juan-Carlos Chaurand is of Mexican descent, and they’re known already to underscore rock with Latin American rhythms played with their African etymologies highlighted, honored. There’s another layer this go-’round, though: Making Movies’ new drummer, Duncan Burnett brings to the blend a lifetime of playing Black gospel—another genre of music with storied derivations in African traditions |
| Cyclical as is life, so is XOPA. The album starts with an unabashed declaration of identity: “Soy el que soy,” Enrique proclaims on the titular song. “And we end the album with ‘don’t go back into that shell, stay out here,’” Duncan points out. It’s embracing the in-between lows as much as one cherishes the highs that are critical to self-acceptance, to a degree of openness that makes living worthwhile. Making Movies offers a route to this enlightened place. Start by feeling the connections — the history and the future — in the music of XOPA. |
| Whether singing in English or Spanish, playing electric guitars or indigenous instruments, Making Movies is breaking down the walls in the U.S. with a sound Rolling Stone describes as, “an eclectic blend of rumbero percussions, delicate organs, and grungy fuzz rock.” |
| Over the course of their career, the quartet has turned heads as a Tiny Desk newcomer (with “A La Deriva”), a voice for immigrant rights (with “I Am Another You” which reached #3 on Billboard’s Latin Pop Album chart), and as a co-writer alongside salsa icon Rubén Blades (with Latin GRAMMY-nominated song “No Te Calles”). |
| The band employs a standard rock lineup of guitar/bass/drums/percussion, but the members also incorporate synthesizers, effects pedals, and indigenous instruments from Latin America into their music. They interweave styles as divergent as cumbia and blues, salsa and soul, Cuban son and rock’n’roll––all boiled down into their own original sound. |
| Making Movies has toured extensively, appearing with the likes of Arcade Fire, Hurray For The Riff Raff, Bomba Estereo, Galactic, Flor De Toloache, and Thievery Corporation. The band is playing a week of shows at SXSW in Austin over the next few days and will be announcing more shows in the coming weeks. |
Making Movies Tour Dates:
March 15-19 – Austin, TX – SXSW
March 20 – Mexico City, Mexico – Vive Latino Music Festival
May 13 – Memphis, TN – Railgarten
May 19 – Kansas City, MO – Folk Alliance International Conference
June 07 – Ridgefield, CT – Ballard Park
June 09 – New York, NY – Mercury Lounge
June 18 – Kansas City, MO – Boulevardia Music Festival
June 25 – Monterrey, Mexico – Machacha Festival
July 07 – Stevens Point, WI – Pfiffner Park
July 09 – Harbor Springs, MI – Blissfest
Sept 30 – Sisters, OR – Sisters Folk Festival
XOPA tracklisting
1 – XOPA
2 – Consejos
3 – Sala De Los Pecadores
4 – Porcelina
5 – Nos Entenderan
6 – La Primara Radio
7 – Mama
8 – La Sombra
9 – Calor
10 – Caracol