fatsO Colombia

The blues of Willie Dixon, the blue-eyed soul of Joe Cocker, and the seedy, jazz-inflected nocturnal world of Tom Waits mix in this saxophone-heavy sextet from Colombia that Rolling Stone called “intelligent and passionate, sophisticated and street-wise.” Brainchild of bassist and gravel-voiced singer Daniel Restrepo, fatsO was jumpstarted by the explosively creative Colombian music scene and ultimately inspired by the upright bass Restrepo bought during a trip to Havana and shipped home, only to find it had been broken to pieces by the time it arrived in Bogotá. After taking months to laboriously repair the instrument, which he named “fatsO” for its considerable girth, Restrepo was inspired to lock himself away in his tiny apartment in the district of La Macarena to write a slew of songs that would provide the foundation of the band’s identity. With an ensemble culled from the city’s most accomplished musicians, the fatsO has built a rabid following in Colombian, Europe, touring the festival circuit and recording their debut release on German Jazzhaus Records, On Tape. With lyrics largely in English, the songs that make up On Tape are evocative slices of lives lived hard – a bluesy, funky story of love, loss, and redemption.