Ebony Steel Band, a London-based orchestra of pannists active since half a century, aren’t the first act to warm up the frosty tunes of German synth-pop pioneers Kraftwerk with a tropical twist. Señor Coconut did so in 2000, but the smirking irony of his faux-Latin kitsch effort doesn’t carry over to ESB’s Trinidadian take — and it’s all the better for it. In fact, the scintillating, even otherworldly clangour of the steel band suits Kraftwerk’s subdued weltschmerz marvelously, and their performances of classics like “The Model” are rich, dignified, sincere, even reverent.
