Bayatas - El Yungue
In northeastern Puerto Rico there’s a place that I’ve been but I can hardly remember. Aided by old photographs of a small me sitting underneath towering cliffs watching water pour down, the El Yunque rainforest and its tumbling falls rekindle memories of my earliest years growing up in San Juan. The rainforest holds a similar place in the memories of the San Juan-born, Miami-based artist Gabriel Berrios, who records under the name Bayatas. On his latest release On Your Clothing, Gabriel includes a track named after the rainforest, a place that he say he misses very much these days. The three-track, bedroom-recorded tropicália collection, as per usual, brims with highlife riffs and wonderfully layered worldbeat rhythms. It’s his third short release in the past few months— so some sort of album cannot be too far away. Download On Your Clothing over at Gabriel’s bandcamp.