Draft:Caramelo Haze

Caramelo Haze, is the newly-formed (2020) Latin electro neo-soul all-star band outfit featuring Beto Martínez, Alex Chavez, Victor “El Guámbito” Cruz, and John Speice. Accomplished producers, songwriters, and multi-instrumentalists, Martínez, Chavez, Cruz, and Speice have collaborated on stage and in the studio for years, yet always in the guise of their own individual projects. Founding-member of the Grammy Award-winning (and famously Prince-backing) Grupo Fantasma, Martínez also spearheads the critically acclaimed bands Brownout and Money Chicha; award-winning composer and producer, Chavez currently fronts the Chicago-based experimental quintet Dos Santos and boasts recent work with Grammy Award-winning Quetzal and Smithsonian Folkways; Cruz is a member of the traditional and futuristic Colombian musical family of NYC where Bulla en el Barrio, Combo Chimbita, and MAKU Sound System (founding member) gestated—the same lineage of his Austin-based psychedelic power trio Nemegata; master drummer and percussionist, Speice is a member of Grupo Fantasma and offshoots Brownout and Money Chicha (alongside Martínez), and has been a regular house drummer for Adrian Quesada’s (Black Pumas) Electric Deluxe studios and played drums for GZA, Bernie Worrell, and the Greyhounds. These four musicians came together in the summer of 2020, deep in the throes of the pandemic to collaborate after months in isolation. They retreated to Martinez’s “Lechehouse Music” studios in Buda, Texas for a series of marathon recording sessions engineered by Martínez.

NOESTASAQUÍ (you aren’t here) 2022
With no expectations or pre-written material to speak of, they improvised their way through a sonic landscape where Afro-Colombian folklore met steamy South Texas soul, where psychedelic Americana blended with the soaring highland sounds of Central Mexico, they released their album debut "NOESTASAQUÍ" (2022)