Galway International Arts Festival & Róisín Dubh presents Novalima on July 21st, doors at 7.30pm.

Started by four friends from Lima with a shared passion for traditional Afro-Peruvian music and global DJ culture, Novalima stands in the common ground bridging past and future, uniting tradition and innovation. It’ s raw and acoustic but with electronic touches. Dark but soulful. Deep and haunting at times. Killer dub basslines with thumping cajon, quijada and conga percussion.

From their humble start, file-sharing musical ideas and producing their first album in separate countries at the dawn of the internet, Novalima is now a live musical force revered worldwide for breaking boundaries and uniting seemingly irreconcilable genres, communities, and generations. They have created an inspiring movement and revolutionized the music scene in their native Peru by bridging a longstanding divide between the mainstream and the minority Afro-Peruvian community, who have struggled against discrimination and cultural dissolution for generations.

While their sound is futuristic and cutting-edge, the roots of Novalima’s music reach back hundreds of years. In a far-too familiar tale, African slaves were brought to Peru as early as the 1500s until the middle of the 19th Century, establishing an outpost of the African-Diaspora on the Pacific coast of South America. Over the years, the soul and rhythms of Africa melded with the melodies and instruments of Europe and the Andes. The result is rich musical repertoire that existed for generations on the periphery of Peruvian popular culture.