Secret Planet APAP Showcase

Join us at DROM and Discover Secret Planet in their APAP Showcase, a unique music-focused event in NYC showcasing boundary-pushing artists from around the globe. Celebrate creativity beyond genres and cultures.

APAP is an annual rite that, every January, brings musicians and music industry professionals to New York City. It is the largest event of its type in the world and brings people from every secret corner of our planet to the New York winter.

The weeklong gathering can be grueling: showcases, conferences, meetings (cold, snow…)  and music can sometimes feel like a footnote or a commodity.

Secret Planet, rather than an industry showcase, prides itself in focusing on music and the event feels more like a festival than a showcase. Artists come from close and afar. From regions and neighborhoods not necessarily represented on the US stage. Regardless of their cultural or geographical origin, all Secret Planet artists, tend to follow their own vision and not be held back by genre, rules, language, commercial appeal or concerns of authenticity. They all have in common a creative impulse never impeded by stylistic or cultural boundaries.

Secret Planet was started in 2012 by Olivier Conan (Brooklyn’s Barbès) and Jim Thomson (DC’s Electric Cowbell). The concept has since evolved into a growing network of like-minded presenters in the NorthEast with chapters in Pittsburgh, Northampton MA, State College PA, DC, Richmond VA and Vermont.

Over the years, Secret Planet has presented close to 80 different artists, including Chicano Batman, Combo Chimbita, Hailu Mergia, Janka Nabai, BCUC, Mdou Moctar, No BS Brass Band, Flor de Toloache, Las Cafeteras, Alash, Anbessa Orchestra, Innov Gnawa, LADAMA, Underground System, The Debo Band, Alsarah & the Nubatones, Sunny Jain,  Sofiane Saidi, Yonatan Gat, Slavic Soul Party,  and quite a few more.

This year’s lineup will feature artists from many backgrounds with a strong focus on musical hybrids borne out of cultural cohabitation and individual exploration.

Luciferin

Luciferin is Ellena Phillips (harp, voice) and Erica Mancini (synths, organ, vibraphone, tape samples, voice), along with visual artist / projectionist, B.A. Maile. The three women create a psychedelic underwater planetarium sanctuary that expresses their love for outer space and the magical creatures of the deep sea. They draw musical inspiration from Dorothy Ashby, Stockhausen, and Pauline Oliveros.

Los Crema Paraiso

Los Crema Paraiso, named after a beloved Caracas' ice cream parlor, is a Venezuelan power trio made up of Neil Ochoa (Si Se, Chicha Libre), José Luis Pardo AKA Cheo (Los Amigos Invisibles), and Álvaro Benavides (Pedrito Martinez Group).

The trio takes Venezuelan traditional music as its foundation, but infuses it with rock, funk, latin grooves, jazz and exotica.

The group has toured the US, including the Ruido Festival in Chicago, River to River festival in New York, LAMC and the Echale festival in San Antonio. They have also performed in Venezuela and Colombia and toured Australia in 2014.

Miramar

Miramar plays bolero-beat, sung in duo form by Rei Alvarez and Laura Ann Singh and arranged by pianist and bandleader Marlysse Argandoña. In the Latin world, boleros are the ultimate expression of love and suffering and hold cross-generational and cross-national appeal. Miramar first gained some notoriety with their debut album Dedication to Sylvia Rexach (Barbès Records), a tribute to the great Puerto Rican bolero composer.

Their follow-up album, Entre Las Flores, is an album of original material to be released by Ansonia Records in early 2025. The music draws from boleros and Latin soul, with the added extravagance of lush orchestral arrangements.

You can watch a video of the single off that album, Un Astro

Yeison Landero

Yeison Landero was born in San Jacinto (Bolívar) in the heart of Los Montes de María located in the Caribbean region of Colombia. His grandfather, Andrés Landero, dubbed the “King of cumbia” was one of Colombia’s most revered accordionists. Today, having inherited this legacy from his grandfather, Yeison, has become the “Heir to cumbia”. He is not only one of Colombia’s best accordion players, but is also working to create his own traditional style.

Lolise

Motswana musician (Underground System, FELA! Band) and fashion designer Lollise charts new afro-futurist directions by creating hybrid songs that represent a patchwork of her childhood in Africa and her new home in NYC: Kalanga folk, Congolese soukous, electronic bubblegum, Zimbabwean sunguru blend into afrobeat, art-pop, and new wave, new world expressions. She is kinetic on stage, performing in a near-telepathic duo arrangement with drummer/DJ/journalist Morgan Greenstreet. “I hit the water” is her latest full-length release, just out last week on Switch Hit Records — a gorgeous, intimate tapestry of afro-diasporic sounds. Lollise was last spotted at Celebrate Brooklyn, on a bill with Seun Kuti.

Chicha Libre

After an 8 years hiatus, psychedelic cumbia group Chicha Libre is back with a new EP - Tequila y Aguardiente, a collaboration with Mexico’s Son Rompe Pera and Colombia’s La Sonora Mazuren - and just played its first live show for Dia de Los Muertos this past November, with Son Rompe Pera and legendary chicha band Los Mirlos - a multi-generational cumbia fest that took place at CDMX’s famed Salon Los Angeles.

Chicha Libre started out in 2007 as a tribute to Peruvian pioneers but quickly evolved into an original project which MTV has cited as one of the world's preeminent Tropical Psychedelic band. Indeed, while they remain true to their Chicha roots, Chicha Libre's music quickly took a more psychedelic turn drawing from its members' alternative background. The band has proven especially popular in South America and Mexico but has also toured extensively in Europe and North America.

Yallah Yallah

Guitarists Amit Peled and Segev Harosh’s a new project pays homage to 1980's drum machine-driven middle-eastern pop, with the two guitarists recreating the dual harmonies parts on guitar, bouzouki and electric oud.

Inspired by classic recordings, they add period-appropriate  keyboard parts, live percussion - and the almighty Alesis SR-16 drum machine, which was the glue that held the original 80's recordings together. Yallah Yallah’s shows are wild and joyful dance parties.

Leon City Sounds

Claudia (Lima, Peru) and Charles (D.C.) – a.k.a. Leon City Sounds – are two selectors, avid record collectors of Peruvian Cumbia \ Jamaican Ska \ Reggae and radio disc jockeys based in Washington DC. They light up the dance floor with tropical rhythms from all over Latin America and Caribbean. Leon City Sounds hosts a weekly radio show “Latin Flavor: Tropical Edition” on WPFW (89.3 FM – wpfwfm.org) and a monthly show on Radio Crown (www.radiocrown.com).

https://youtu.be/7qoQvGfyW0I