Alma x C.Tappin

With releases on Bogota’s Indio, on Cologne based Melting Pot Music and as part of the Loshh, Mansur Brown and Bel Cobain live setups, 2022 was set to be a strong year for Alma De La Selva and anticipation was high for their performance at TT Liquor.

Alma De La Selva and C.Tappin turned up to TT with one of the biggest setups we’d seen to date. A Nord Keyboard, OP-1 sampler, Korg Volca, congas and a huge bag of percussion all got ferried down the stairs to the cellar bar along with multiple mics and a record filled with bird-noise samples. We needed all 16 of our Yamaha desk’s channels to accommodate this menagerie of instruments and equipment, not to mention a couple of last minute shop trips to make sure we had all the necessary power cords and plugs.

Chris P Cuts worked with Alma De La Selva and C.Tappin to get the setup perfect, tinkering with levels, acoustics and positioning. It was a lot of work but all worth it as they sounded amazing.

The room was packed with friends and family so energy was already infectiously high by the time Alma & C.Tappin started. The two seemed stuck in the moment, with a delicate high end vocal range and some incredible percussion sounds. Everyone present was really taken in and lost in the performance and the aura of the artist. That OP-1 sampler can really do it all and C.Tappin used it brilliantly for stems and vocal overdubs and loads of other inventive sounds that had Chris scratching his head wondering how he had produced them.

An hour flew by, each improvised track leading seamlessly into the next with the whole room completely enthralled by the performance. “Shall we do another one?” Alma called from the stage, the crowd enthusiastically answered in the affirmative and the duo capped off their performance with a final five-minute piece, leaving the audience hungry for more.

A palpable sense of joy and appreciation seemed to spread across the room following the duo’s performance. The audience–around half of which was made up of young musicians who’d come down to catch this one-off show–stood in awe of Alma and C. Tappin’s creative and original approach to performing. The vibes continued until closing with the artists sticking around to drink and chat with the audience and Chris P Cuts providing a soundtrack of jazz, hip-hop and Latin music to wrap up the night.

We look forward to working with this exceptionally talented pair of artists again and they’ve got loads in the pipeline so be sure to keep an ear to the ground for more upcoming releases and shows from Alma De La Selva and C.Tappin.