Cho-Cho & Dasheen is a collaboration between Jake Bellows (Neva Dinova), Morgan Nagler (Whispertown), Orenda Fink (Azure Ray), Todd Fink (The Faint), and local musicians the group encountered while traveling in Jamaica. Their collaborators included bassist and producer Brian Jobson (No Doubt, Keith Richards, Jimmy Cli , Annie Lennox), engineer and keyboard player Barry O’Hare (Third World, Burning Spear), and drummer Joslyn “Speckles” Mckenzie (Burning Spear). From the band: “These songs were written along the prehistoric petri¬ed coral Caribbean seaside, at Poetreef, Cousin's Cove, Jamaica. Under the in uence of I-tal Rastafarian vegetarian cooking, (featuring cho-cho and dasheen, amongst a variety of other root vegetables) roots music, and high on Mother Earth, we wrote of the hustlers in Negril, and the ocean's white caps (aka grey horse), galloping across a sea of raw energy, in a foreign land. We then found ourselves in Ocho Rios recording with some of the greats. By day, in the upstairs strip-mall studio, we watched "Speckles" (the epic drummer), commanding impossible rhythms out of otherwise mundane tambourines, and Barry O'hare "playing" the mix, live, dub-style, like a magical new instrument. By night, we slept under a historic tin roof, in the jungle rain forest with crystal clear river swimming holes, banana spiders, evidence of rats, and lessons in Dominoes, by a man called "Doggie," and a man called "Manly." Cool Pool Reggae is the result.”