Ranil y Su Conjunto Tropical - Galaxia Tropical (Analog Africa No.43)

On April 18, 2019, fresh off the plane in Iquitos, I jumped into the taxi of an elderly gentleman and immediately knew that the stars were aligned. As we rode toward the city center, I explained that I had come to the Peruvian Amazon to find Ranil. “You mean Ranil the singer? I know where he lives,” he replied, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. “He has a radio station — I’ll take you there.” We arrived in the heart of the frenetic Belén market 30 minutes later, and before I knew it, I was no longer searching for the man — I was standing right in front of him. Ranil and I hit it off immediately and ended up spending a month working together on this project.

A year later, in early 2020, I booked a flight back to Perú, this time carrying with me the first volume of Ranil y Su Conjunto Tropical, freshly pressed on vinyl. The plan, together with Ranil, was to organise a release party in Lima and then continue on to Iquitos, but it was not meant to be. Before we could gather, a lockdown paralyzed the country, and Ranil passed away on April 24, 2020. Those who knew him best said that the silence that fell over his beloved neighbourhood was the one thing his heart could not endure.

Born in 1935 as Jorge Raúl Llerena Vásquez, Ranil’s story begins in the Peruvian Amazon, in a corner where the sounds of the forest fuse with stray radio waves from Colombia, Brazil, and Ecuador. After winning several local singing contests as a young man, he quickly realized that breaking into Peru’s music industry — especially as an artist from “the end of the world” — would not be an easy path. So he focused on his studies, becoming a teacher in a rural town near the Brazilian border, quietly writing his first songs to the rhythm of jungle life.

Years later, back in Iquitos, destiny arrived in the form of Johnny Quinteros of Los Silver’s, who invited Ranil to join as singer. Their two albums recorded in the early 1970s, became cult treasures. When the band dissolved, the lead guitarist Limber Zumba and Ranil teamed up and recorded a demo that they took to Lima in search of a recording company. Returning disappointed from the capital — where unacceptable conditions had been proposed — Ranil decided to start his own label, Producciones Llerena, something unheard of in this part of the Peruvian Amazon.

With a rotating cast of brilliant musicians such as Luis Nigro, Emilio Piña, and Betto Gaviria by his side, Ranil crafted a sound that locals lovingly called "llullampeo" — imaginative, unpredictable, and fabulously unrestrained. His percussionists wove grooves that have not resurfaced in the region since, and the 14 songs presented here remain some of the most vivid document of that fearless, free-spirited, often psychedelic ensemble.

Over the years, Ranil released more than a dozen LPs, though often in beautiful disorder. Mismatched covers, wrong labels, missing song titles, chaotic management — Producciones Llerena was not meant to survive the test of time.

By the 1980s, as Amazonian cumbia faded and new trends took over, Ranil reinvented himself as a radio pioneer, founding Radio Llerena in the heart of Belén’s market. Its loudspeakers filled the neighbourhood with cumbia, commentary, and community news, turning him into one of Iquitos’s best-known voices and setting him on the path to politics. Outraged by Amazonian injustices, Ranil ran several times for Mayor of Belén with the Popular Action party, but he never won an election.


*** Epilogue by Samy Ben Redjeb ***

While I was stuck in Lima during the lockdown, I uploaded a selection of previously unreleased Ranil songs to our Bandcamp for a symbolic sum of $1. The collection was titled “Stay Safe & Sound – The Ranil Selection.” To my surprise, people began contributing far more than the suggested amount.

Looking for meaningful ways to put that money to use, I got in touch with Berlin-based Peruvian music producer Diego Hernández of the Eck Echo label. During our first conversation, I learned that in Iquitos, many people were dying primarily due to a shortage of oxygen. Diego told me about Father Raymundo Portelli, a priest who had been coordinating a fundraising campaign to acquire an oxygen plant for the city’s inhabitants. He was clearly the person we needed to support.

Diego and I joined forces to establish the Amazonía Relief Fund, actively encouraging contributions while featuring the Ranil selection as our centerpiece. Within two weeks, we had raised approximately €13,000, which was donated directly to Father Raymundo to facilitate the purchase of a second oxygen plant—likely saving many lives.

Even in death, Ranil was doing God’s work!