Juan Almeida led the Cuban Revolution alongside the Castro brothers and Che Guevara, and after the revolution he served as one of the country's vice presidents and as president of the Association of Combatants of the Cuban Revolution, all while publishing books as an author and, as a composer, leaving behind more than 300 Cuban songs. Shining brilliantly within that vast discography, "Fantasia" is an instrumental album that unfolds as a true fantasy piece, hard to file simply as Cuban music. There's a cinematic, orchestral-score quality to the sound, sound effects and percussion that recur like apparitions of ghosts and spirits, trippy electronics, orchestrated classical passages... and moments that plunge into exotic funk, mambo, psychedelia and Afro-Cuban percussion — varied and grand throughout. The intros and outros are played seamlessly, mixtape style, so before you know it you're fully immersed and have listened straight through. The samples are excerpts from tracks running nine and seven minutes. Please experience it as a full listen from start to finish. (Original Japanese text by AYAM)