Orkestra Del Sol – Lung Capacity

There are two ways of setting about summing up Lung Capacity, the latest album from Edinburgh’s brass-steppers extraordinaire. The first would be to focus on the exemplary musicianship on offer throughout, and the ways in which this 9-piece twist a wide-reaching variety of styles into novel ideas that even the most inventive of musical minds would struggle to conceive of, such as the unlikely brass-driven dubstep jam of Boney Kit Steppa, or the Carnivale toe-tapper that is El Malandro.

But that would be missing the heart of the matter, namely the abundance of vitality that they proudly display in every flourish of accordion and frenetic trumpet blast, and the feeling of joy that the soul intercepts on each listen. It’s the spirit of celebration and drunken revelry, of plate smashing and Horas; if Lung Capacity doesn’t make you want to dance through to the next morning then you’ve never known how to party. [David Bowes]