Señor Coconut and his Orchestra: Around the World

Originally published on Fábrika here:

As a great music critic once put it, “pop eats itself.” Nowhere is this dictum as playfully and wantonly embodied as in “Around the World,” by electronic musician Señor Coconut. Our shape-shifting DJ (a.k.a. Atom) has resurfaced under yet another alias to produce a quirky, delightful collection of international pop covers. His self-described style, “electrolatino,” is an idiosyncratic mixture of cha-cha, mambo, merengue, and various other assorted Latin American genres fused with a healthy dose of beat science and a generous supporting section of horns and vibraphones (his “Orchestra”). On paper, this seems to be an odd, incoherent, and kitschy concept – covering such hallowed pop ground as “Sweet Dreams” (The Eurythmics) and “Kiss” (Prince) as lounge lizard, irony-drenched mambo tunes should be violating some unwritten law of pop appropriateness. Yet, surprisingly and inexplicably, “Around the World” is a stunning success. In a pop music world where ironic detachment is all too often a vehicle for angst and despair, Señor Coconut shows us just how fun and original kitsch can be.

Outsiders appropriating Latin music is nothing new. Señor Coconut is part of a long line of distinguished Lationophiles, from Dizzy Gillespie’s experiments in Afro-Cuban rhythm to Herbie Mann’s leisure-suit 60s chic. (If you wanted to go way back, French composer Georges Bizet was dabbling in the exotic textures of Cuban music for his iconic opera “Carmen” in 1875). Where Coconut differs from the above, however, is in his unabashed, brazen disregard for any notion of authenticity. As he points out on his website, mambo itself is a synthetic genre invented by a Cuban exile living in Mexico and writing for the American market. It is therefore a byproduct of multicultural crosscurrents, just like “Around the World.” Nothing in pop music is stylistically “pure,” and this revelation is flaunted across the fourteen tracks that make up the album.

But don’t take “Around the World” as simple empty pastiche. The international covers included here, from the ones mentioned above to 80s German electronica “Da Da Da” and the Antonio Carlos Jobim classic “Corcovado,” are immaculately re-imagined here with a deft ear to the arrangements and a keen sense of humor. Don’t expect the bluesy, seductive saunter of “Kiss” with a clave and timbales pasted into the mix: all the covers here are complete makeovers of the originals. The concept of the album may be all about carefree amalgamation, but the arrangements themselves are precise and carefully planned. This outing is a rigorous exercise in genre bending without losing sight of the sublime silliness that makes the collection so immensely listenable.

Señor Coconut has accomplished something truly elusive with this record. “Pop eats itself” is a commentary on the unimaginative, derivative nature of most popular music. Coconut has demonstrated here, however, that derivatives can in fact be imaginative. Who’d have thought that the sound of pop eating itself could be so much fun?