RANIL Y SU CONJUNTO TROPICAL - Galaxia Tropical (Reissue) - LP - Gatefold 180g Vinyl [FEB 6]

LP - 180g Virgin Vinyl housed in a Gatefold Sleeve (2026 Reissue). 

Five years after the first volume, Analog Africa returns with a second compilation highlighting Ranil y Su Conjunto Tropical, one of the greatest practitioners of Peruvian Cumbia Amazonica - 'Galaxia Tropical' features 14 songs with a guitar groove you won't forget, underlying Ranil's extraordinary output as singer, bandleader, record-label entrepreneur and larger-than-life personality.

On April 18, 2019, fresh off the plane in Iquitos, I jumped into the taxi of an elderly gentleman and explained that I had come to the Peruvian Amazon to find Ranil. I know where he lives," he replied, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. And before I knew it, I was no longer searching for the man -- I was standing right in front of him. Ranil and I hit it off immediately and ended up spending a month working together on this project.

Born in 1935 as Jorge Raul Llerena Vasquez, Ranil's story begins in the Peruvian Amazon, where the sounds of the forest mixed with stray radio waves from Colombia, Brazil and Ecuador. He quickly understood that breaking into Peru's music industry -- especially as an artist from "the end of the world" -- would be no easy path. He decided to start his own label, Producciones Llerena, something unheard of in this part of the Peruvian Amazon.

With a rotating cast of brilliant musicians by his side, Ranil crafted a sound that locals lovingly called "llullampeo" -- imaginative, unpredictable, and fabulously unrestrained. His percussionists wove grooves that have not resurfaced in the region since, and the 14 songs presented here remain some of the most vivid document of that fearless, free-spirited, often psychedelic ensemble.

Over the years, Ranil released more than a dozen LPs, though often in beautiful disorder. Mismatched covers, wrong labels, missing song titles, chaotic management — Producciones Llerena was not meant to survive the test of time.

By the 1980s, as Amazonian cumbia faded and new trends took over, Ranil reinvented himself as a radio pioneer, founding Radio Llerena in the heart of Belén’s market. Its loudspeakers filled the neighbourhood with cumbia, commentary, and community news, turning him into one of Iquitos’s best-known voices and setting him on the path to politics. Outraged by Amazonian injustices, Ranil ran several times for Mayor of Belén with the Popular Action party, but he never won an election.

*** Epilogue by Samy Ben Redjeb ***

Tracklist: 

Side A
1. Galaxia Tropical
2. Bahia 
3. Inka
4. Tres Cienaquero
5. Con Ranil Por supuesto (Interlude 1)
6. Gitanita 
7. Albores De Mi Selva

Side B
1. Cumbia Del Torero
2. Llora Venus 
3. Serenata (Interlude 2)
4. Pueblo
5. Mambo En Espana 
6. Lindo Atardecer
7. Andalusia