Although hardly well known, the work of Bogota’s Eblis Alvarez under the Meridian Brothers pseudonym is highly regarded by those in the know. This is largely down to a handful of productions that take Latin funk and soul into trippy new territory. Desesperanza, Alvarez’s first full-length for Soundway, continues this theme, coming on like the results of a particularly vivid acid trip, deep in the Colombian rainforest. While tropical and undoubtedly Latin in construct, the constant use of psychedelic elements and mind-bending production techniques gives it a particularly blurry hue. It’s a bit disarming at first, but explore further and you’ll find a brilliant set of weird and wonderful “tropical psyche” gems.