CENTRAL dry off Towel with Tokyo salsa, rhumba heat and punk-club stamina

CENTRAL’s Towel arrives on 18 June from Tokyo, and the band’s history makes the release far more interesting than the wonderfully plain title suggests. Formed in 1999 and fascinated by classic New York salsa from the 1970s, CENTRAL have long moved between salsa, ska, rock, punk and club spaces in Tokyo. They even backed boogaloo legend Joe Bataan on his Japanese tours in 2016 and 2017, which gives their Latin-soul credentials a real living lineage. Towel comes as a two-track release with This Is What You Are on the flip, tagged around Latin, Latin jazz, Latin soul, rhumba and salsa. That range suggests sweat, rhythm, brass, percussion and a room that knows dancing is not only entertainment but muscle memory. Sometimes the best global music stories are not about fusion as trend. They are about scenes keeping old grooves alive in unexpected cities.

Source: https://salsa-central.bandcamp.com/album/towel