Bugiganga Tropical Vol.1 by Super Spanish Combo & Banda Jardes

Bugiganga Tropical Vol.1 • 7″ Vinyl 45 rpm

Double Cover + Insert

Catalog Number 0 – The inaugural release of our foundational collection.

The Origin: A Botany of Resistance

Before there was a label, there was an idea. And that idea was Bugiganga Tropical.

This four-record 7″ collection is not a side project. It is the seed from which Tropical Diaspora Records grew. Conceived as "A Botany of Resistance," each volume pairs a lost or vital groove with a plant of the African diaspora; a living symbol of memory, labor, survival, and rhythm. This is where we began. This is Catalog Number 0.

This first volume comes as a double cover (two separate sleeves) with an inner insert featuring photographs and lyrics.

Side A

Grilos Da Vida (Nego Vem Sambá)
by Banda Jardes • São Paulo, 1976

A phantom record. Among São Paulo's vinyl hunters, its existence is a whispered legend. Everyone knows of it. Almost no one holds it.

The story; told by Régis, one of the last living links to the band; is this: Banda Jardes was famous in the city. But when someone pressed thousands of illegal copies, the band, the producer, and Régis hunted for the culprit. The pressure became unbearable. In panic, the bootlegger allegedly dumped all unsold records into the Tietê River.

Decades later, in São Paulo, Régis agreed to meet. He owned the only known surviving copy. And he made one thing clear: this record is only borrowed. Lent to Tropical Diaspora Records for one purpose; to be reborn.

Now, that very vinyl has traveled from São Paulo to Berlin. Carefully transferred from Régis's original, this samba rock jewel will finally see the light again. But before we cut a new 7″, the audience here gets the first chance to hear it, dance to it, and feel its ghost.

Side B

Mataron A Juan Andrés
by Super Spanish Combo • Barcelona, 2016

We have known Super Spanish Combo since their early Barcelona days. Last year, we finally brought them to Berlin for Tropical Diaspora Vol. 37; a night of raw, conscious energy. This is a band with responsibility and conscience. Their music carries weight.

Mataron a Juan Andrés is testimony set to rhythm. Juan Andrés Benítez Álvarez, 50, born in Seville, a longtime resident of Barcelona's Raval district. He ran two small businesses in the Gayxample area. A video surfaced showing four policemen kicking, punching, and kneeing him to death. A neighbor who filmed it said he "squealed like a pig."

Super Spanish Combo turned horror into a requiem. This is their voice.

About Bugiganga Tropical – A Botany of Resistance

Cover Design by Matthias Beck – www.estudiorosebud.com

Each cover in this four-volume collection features a plant linked to the African diaspora in the Americas; a visual reminder of why Africans were brought across the ocean. Not as decoration. As memory.

Volume 1 honors the coffee plant; cultivated by enslaved and free Africans across South America, in the same regions where samba, samba rock, and countless other rhythms were forged from the collision of African, Indigenous, and European worlds.

Inside, you will find an insert with photos and lyrics; a closer look into the stories behind these grooves.

We began here. We hope you will too.

Disclaimer: It is strictly prohibited to use Tropical Diaspora Records® releases as coffee-table music.