Humanfolk

World Music

HUMANFOLK is a world music project between Johnny Alegre (guitar, bamboo percussion, voice), Susie Ibarra (kulintang, drums, percussion, voices) and her husband, Roberto Juan Rodriguez (drums, percussion), together with renowned Philippine musical artists Cynthia Alexander (guitar, vocals, bass, bamboo percussion, gongs), and Malek Lopez (keyboards, synthesizer and sound design). In June of 2008, they recorded a musical suite by Alegre, entitled “Humanfolk”, which consequently became the name of the concept band. Humanfolk's music combines indigenous Philippine elements of bamboo and gong instruments, with folk-jazz, Brazilian, Cuban, Indian and Iberian strains, with overlays of electronica and urban Southeast Asian sounds. The amalgam becomes a rich electro-acoustic environment, replete with modal improvisation, wordless songs, rambling melodies and exotic harmonic progressions. Their seminal recording, catalyzed by the Phil-American percussion avant-gardist and indigenous music advocate, Susie Ibarra, with the Cuban-born drummer Roberto Juan Rodriguez (whose musical chops were honed in the orchestra of the great bassist-composer, Israel “Cachao” Lopez), have brought these adventurous musicians together into the same room: guitarist-composer Johnny Alegre; singer-composer and multi-instrumentalist Cynthia Alexander; and the electronica exponent and sound designer, Malek Lopez. Johnny Alegre is a recording artist whose pioneering albums and performances have r...