Light and breezy
J. TIMMERMAN | Lawson, NSW Australia | 04/21/2005
(4 out of 5 stars)
"Music from chocolate-producing countries like the Congo, India, Brazil, Haiti, Mexico, Ivory Coast, Hawaii, Belize, Peru and Cuba. This album as a whole is light, happy, soft and warm, with lilting rhythms and attractive vocals from artists completely unknown to me, nope not a single one. But hey, they're great so don't let not knowing the bands put you off! Each track is a beautifully-produced gem in its own right. The album opens with a bouncy number from Toto Bona Lokua, three guys from the Congo, Cameroon and Martinique with a catchy French Caribbean sound, great voices and their very own made-up language! Then a languid ballad from Indian Susheela Raman, a breezy folksy song from Brazilian Marcantonio, a jazzy hip-swayer from Haitian Beetova Obas, a club dance number aptly titled "Chocolate Sabroso" from Cuba's Chocolate Armenteros, and so the fun continues."
Great if you like and appreciate different world music
Muffin-man | West Virginia | 09/26/2005
(5 out of 5 stars)
"This album, along with music CDs from the same company such as the coffee lands (Vols. I and II), and tea lands, are great to play outdoors on those lazy summer evenings when you are have a barbecue (particularly some BBQ dish from an exotic country) having cold drinks with a group of friends, and being under the soft backyard party lights.. . It is excellent background music.
I played it last summer while doing a BBQ from a South Pacific cookbook, and everyone was asking about both the dish and the music. Everyone loved them."
Can't "just say no"
Scaliwag | San Francisco | 01/27/2007
(3 out of 5 stars)
"Putumayo is almost a menace, creating compilations that are easy for Americans to indulge in because the selections are always as light an airy as a cream puff. But my interest is in sounds that are different from what I know, and with Putumayo's cds, I never feel like I'm truly learning what music from a particular region has to offer. Still, I find it hard to pass up their compilations, because, all in all, they are pretty nice. There's usually at least one song that makes the watered-downness of the whole venture worthwhile, and this one is no exception. PopMatters put it this way: "For the last 10 years, Putumayo has been marketing world music as easy listening. Bright, flat, cartoony album covers and cutesy compilation concepts ... provide a hint at the sheer softness of a typical Putumayo world music CD. There's percussion in Putumayo's world, of course, but true rhythmic intensity is rare and dissonance completely extinct. Imagine an Africa that never heard of the electric guitar and you're probably not far off the mark. Music From the Chocolate Lands, then, is a typical Putumayo world music CD. World music as easy listening: it's just a terrible idea in the first place, right? Well, right -- but beauty counts for a lot in easy listening, and Chocolate Lands is gorgeous." And to the reviewer's point below--yes, what happened to Ecuador?
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