Toro Ensamble - Barrio Latino
Venezuelan bandleader and percussionist Marco Toro Bernal got his first drumkit on his 9th birthday and never stopped playing and studying, learning all about the possibilities and intricacies of his instrument. At 16 he started his first (Western style) rock band and in 1989 he founded Laberinto—a heavy metal band. In 1992 these latin metalrockers decided to make the jump to Europe and found a new home in Amsterdam, from which base they started to tour and recorded 8 albums.
Although Laberinto is his 'spiritual' home, Marco never forgot about his rootedness in Venezuelan musical culture, characterized as it is by its latin and Afrovenezuelan rhythmic patterns. As a testimony to this heritage on this record he plays a wide variety of percussion instruments, timbales, shakers, and typical Venezuelan instruments like the cumaco, culo 'e puya, and palitos.
He embarked on a solo project, the Toro Ensamble, of which this CD—Barrio Latino, referring to his roots as a pan-latin urbanite—is the enticing and exciting first result. On this project he leaves the circumscribed world of metalatino and goes back to his childhood memories of salsa brava and Venezuelan popular and folk music, integrating these with new soundscapes from the global village.
Listen to this record and you surely will be encapsulated in the rhythmic world of Marco Toro, intrigued by where he comes from and spellbound to follow his further career!
