California singer, songwriter, guitarist, and producer Chuck Prophet announced today a new collaborative album with Cumbia group ¿Qiensave? called Wake The Dead will release on October 25th through Yep Roc Records. An extraordinary and unlikely pairing, Prophet and ¿Qiensave? blend seamlessly together as the collection dives headfirst into the world of Cumbia music, which consumed and comforted Prophet during a recent bout with stage four lymphoma and subsequent recovery. They also shared the album’s lead single and title track “Wake The Dead,” an anthem that reckons with forces beyond our control while learning to let go, a recurring theme at the core of the album.
“I never want to be a downer,” stated Prophet. “This record doesn’t shy away from darkness, but it always feels hopeful. When I was growing up listening to The Clash and their flirtations with reggae, the thing I remember most is how the music hit me, how it made me feel. The more you listened, the more was revealed, but on the most fundamental level, those records just felt good, and that was really important to me with this album.”
Prophet’s fascination with Cumbia music began after experiencing a weekly Cumbia night at a local haunt of his in San Francisco’s Mission district. He quickly became obsessed: collecting old vinyl from Latin America, studying its origins, DJ’ing, and loading his friends up with new mixes every time they came to visit. After he was diagnosed, he had a lot of time to just sit and listen as he went through treatments. “I was going through a tunnel,” he recalls. “It was dark. But I had music: music to play, music to listen to, music to get me out of my head. Music was my savior.” More than any other genre, Cumbia served as a faithful musical companion and reprieve during his immunotherapy and chemotherapy.
Once he was finally feeling better, Prophet started driving out to Salinas on a regular basis to jam with a group he’d fallen in love with called ¿Qiensave?, a band of brothers from the Central Coast farming community. The sessions came together on a whim, for the sheer fun of it at first, but Prophet soon invited the band to back him up at a couple of live shows, and the immediate reaction from audiences made it clear they were on to something special. Prophet and ¿Qiensave? hit the studio soon afterwards, where they blended with his longtime backing band, The Mission Express, to track the heart of Wake The Dead live on the floor. It was chaotic at times, cramming as many as eight musicians into the same studio space, but they prioritized gut feeling over sonic perfection and allowed the undeniable energy of the performances to guide them.
The result is a profoundly adventurous celebration of life that balances hope and fear in equal measure, a rich and exultant meditation on what really matters from an artist who always manages to find the light, even in the face of the most oppressing darkness. Prophet approaches the style not as an academic or historian, but as a fan with a voracious appetite and an insatiable curiosity. The songs are intoxicatingly rhythmic, all but demanding you move your body while you listen, with arrangements that blur the lines between tradition and innovation, between past and present, between cultures and countries. There are flashes of rock and roll, punk, surf, and soul, all filtered through the streets of San Francisco and wrapped up in the rich legacy of a genre that traces its roots back hundreds of years and thousands of miles.
ABOUT CHUCK PROPHET:
A longtime San Franciscan, Chuck Prophet cut his teeth in the music business in the 1980s as a member of the legendary “Paisley Underground” group Green on Red. With his band, the Mission Express, which includes his wife Stephanie Finch, he regularly tours the U.S. and Europe, and has appeared on the Late Show with David Letterman, Austin City Limits, and more. His songs have been featured in television (True Blood, Sons of Anarchy) and film (P.S. I Love You, Teeth). In writing on what he was currently listening to in 2004, renowned writer Stephen King wrote on Chuck’s music: "It's lovely, incantatory and mysterious. God bless Chuck Prophet." Through the years, as a producer, singer/songwriter, guitarist, bandleader, and collaborator, he’s worked with artists as diverse as Alejandro Escovedo, Cake, Solomon Burke, Lucinda Williams, and Warren Zevon. In 2021, Chuck Prophet released his 15th solo record, The Land That Time Forgot. NPR raved “He's as original as the characters he brings to life, in all their tawdry, tattered glory.”
ABOUT ¿QIENSAVE?:
¿Qiensave? is a Cumbia Urbana group from Salinas California with roots stretching back to Michoacán, Mexico. They create high energy dance music that has fortunately blessed them with the opportunity to travel throughout California, Arizona, Mexico, and Colombia. They have existed as a musical entity since 2009, but within the last few years the band has picked up steam by releasing their sophomore album Mujer via ONErpm Music, which includes singles produced by world-renowned and Latin Grammy-nominated musician Eric Canales and Platinum Producer Sam Pura, and touring which has given ¿Qiensave? the opportunity to share the stage with acts like Celso Piña, Grupo Kual, La Santa Cecilia, Fuerza de Tijuana, and La Septima Banda among others. Currently, the band is promoting the release of their new single “512-1433” which is the story of being given the same number by two different women.For more information contact Stefan.Hayes@V2benelux.com
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