FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

Music

Meet the Electroacoustic Pioneers Who Inspired Cuba's Dance Music Scene

Decades later, their work inspired a younger generation of DJs who helped push the island's burgeoning dance music community.

In the early 1960s, a group of pioneering Cuban musicians toyed with oscillators, Moog synths, and dusty old tapes to cultivate the country's little-known electro-acoustic scene. Under the watchful eye of the Cuban government and culture board, electroacoustic godfathers Juan Blanco and his disciple Juan Pinera recorded musique concrète pieces in a state-approved home studio, combining modern equipment and sonic experimentation with more traditional Cuban styles like salsa. Decades later, their work inspired a younger generation of curious DJs who helped push the island's burgeoning dance music community. Earlier in the year THUMP went down to Cuba and heard firsthand from Juan Pinera, Emmanual Blanco, the son of Juan Blanco and current director of Havana's National Laboratory of Electroacoustic Music school, as well as a few of the DJs who are now pushing the country's scene forward.

Advertisement

Stream the part two and part three of SUB.Culture - Cuba only on @go90: