That wasn’t yet the full moon hanging coyly behind a hazy scrim last night, but Friday did bring Arbor Day. By 6pm outside at Cheer Up Charlies, the weather felt downright Mediterranean. An Algerian blues squad and Afro-Colombian funkateers fueled the rapturous night on Red River like a sea breeze.
As all of Austin choked in nearby rush hour traffic, Superfónicos soundchecked on the outside stage of the self-sustaining club footprint that is CUC, a dozen or so onlookers nodding to the Latin septet based here. Its dual lead reeds, tenor saxist Raymond Johnson and gaita fluatest/singer Jaime Ospina, drowned out any downtown urban blare. Imarhan, five pair of jeans, t-shirts, and phones, huddled at a table close by.
The transformation of both acts over the next two hours turned the capital of Texas into an international tidal pool of true root music.
Superfónicos, whose engine room stoked a drummer, conguero, two guitarists, and a bandleadering bassist vibrating faultlines on four strings, opened while fiddling with Babatunde Olatunji’s “Jingo” riff and immediately revved nearly every single engine in the house. Not a soul in front of the stage wasn’t moving at least one body part to the group’s liquid fusion of Afro-beat, cumbia, merengue. Bandanas, doo-rags, and tie-dye danced in the charged air. “Sigue Pa Lante” and “Sueltate” dropped universal hooks stoking the ample crowd to super funky nirvana.
One by one, Imarhan had slipped away from the table to get into their desert garb, and after a short break began peeling off a series of minor-key cascades by a pair of axe charmers, ball percussionist, drummer, and bassist. Then it got louder. Meatier, beatier, big, and bouncy.
Single note statements quickly avalanched into acidic Sixties electricity, wah-wah bends alternating with the frontman’s long, spidery figures on his Gibson SG. They dropped into a drone one song, then upticked into an eyes-white double time of stinging needlepoint.
As the sky turned darker shades of blue and the pink canopy over the stage began refracting the red and orange Xmas lights strung below it, Levitation lifted off and not for the first or last time this weekend.
This article appears in April 27 • 2018.
