Biography
Daniel Villarreal-Carrillo, born in Panama and now residing in the United States, works as a drummer, percussionist, and DJ whose primary recognition stems from co-founding Chicago’s Dos Santos. He maintains an active presence in both the Windy City and Los Angeles while forming one half of the Los Sundowns alongside guitarist Beto Martinez and participating in the traditional son jarocho ensemble Ida y Vuelta. He has also supported singer/songwriter Rudy De Anda and Wild Belle in live performances and studio sessions. His adaptable pan-Latin approach fuses core Panamanian elements with Caribbean, Colombian, Mexican, and Afro-Cuban son and salsa traditions, drawing additional inspiration from psychedelic rock, free jazz, post-punk, hip-hop, R&B, and funk. In 2022 he delivered his first solo release, Panamá 77, on International Anthem, with Lados B appearing the next year.
His birthplace, Panama City, and birth year of 1977 directly inform the album title. As a youngster he took up percussion and drums, later embracing punk wholeheartedly as a teenager and performing in Central American punk and hardcore circles, most notably with Panama City groups NOHAYDIA and 2 Huevos 1 Camino throughout the 1990s. Panamanian reggaeton drummer Freddy Sobers, known for his work with El General and Nando Boom, recognized his promise and mentored him, introducing an array of styles and textures with the exact counsel that “everything from Rush to reggaeton to Chick Corea to salsa music” mattered and that mastery required absorbing every idiom.
He relocated to the United States in the early 2000s, spending his initial decade on a farm near Woodstock, Illinois, where he earned his livelihood as a social worker linking migrant laborers to local health services while devoting the bulk of his hours to raising two daughters. Any remaining moments went toward drumming; online connections led to collaborations, and he also performed with nearby Latin folk players. Greater involvement in Chicago’s music community gradually increased his gig schedule, prompting a decisive move to the city itself in 2011 with the explicit goal of pursuing music full time.
Another ten years followed as a sideman across multiple genres, during which he simultaneously established himself as a DJ with encyclopedic knowledge of global sounds. In 2013 he helped launch Dos Santos Anti-Beat Orquesta alongside vocalist/keyboardist/guitarist Alex Chavez, bassist Jaime Garza, guitarist Nathan Karagianis, and conguero Peter Vale—all musicians steeped in pan-Latin forms and active in everything from traditional groups to jam bands. Their self-titled debut arrived two years later and earned widespread praise from indie outlets for uniting Mexican and broader Latin idioms with surf, prog, psychedelia, garage rock, jazz, R&B, and further elements. The Fonografic EP surfaced on Electric Cowbell Records the following year, produced by Beto Martínez of Grammy Award-winning Grupo Fantasma. In 2017 the band partnered with Grupo Fantasma/Brownout offshoot Money Chicha on the split single “Summit Sessions” for Sonorama Discos. By then Dos Santos had become a fixture on the Chicago circuit, carrying their distinctive American sound on national tours before returning to sign with International Anthem and issue Logos in June 2018, followed by additional touring; that same year they also released a split-cassette single with Money Chicha.
Beyond Dos Santos, Villarreal-Carrillo recorded and toured with Elliot and Natalie Bergman’s Wild Belle while joining Chicago’s Ida y Vuelta, a Pilsen-based live group devoted to son jarocho—the Mexican traditional style from the Sotavento region that merges African, Spanish-Arabic, and Indigenous roots with poetic expression.
From Dos Santos’s earliest days he had aimed to develop a personal studio project reflecting his full musical perspective. Informal experiments in 2017 and 2018 approached his vision without fully realizing it until a 2019 Los Angeles performance ignited the decisive spark. There he captured an impromptu session with Elliot Bergman, Jeff Parker, Kellen Harrison, and Chicano Batman’s Bardo Martínez; its energy convinced him to expand the material into a complete album.
When the pandemic arrived in 2020 he refused to delay the project, driving to Los Angeles with his drum kit and staging four lengthy, socially distanced outdoor sessions with collaborators while also recording in Chicago alongside International Anthem associates. After these sessions he spent most of 2021 layering and refining the tracks in his home studio. That year he additionally co-formed the psychedelic Latin soul duo Los Sundowns with Grupo Fantasma/Money Chicha guitarist and producer Beto Martínez, releasing the singles “Los Angeles” and “Al Final de la Tarde” plus a six-track self-titled EP. He rejoined Dos Santos to complete City of Mirrors, issued in October 2021 and the band’s strongest commercial performer to date, though pandemic aftereffects restricted touring.
Villarreal-Carrillo and producer Dave Vettraino persisted with final adjustments, incorporating extra percussion and atmospheric elements, editing, and assembly at International Anthem throughout 2021, with further contributions arriving late in the process: New York jazz trumpeter Aquiles Navarro of Irreversible Entanglements recorded his part at his family home in Panama, Los Angeles violinist/arranger Marta Sofia Honer supplied string arrangements for two tracks, and a last overdub session took place at Bardo Martínez’s garage studio. Once the record coalesced, he named it Panamá 77 to honor both his birthplace and birth year; International Anthem released it in May 2022.
Portions of the album originated in a two-day October 2020 Los Angeles session featuring Villarreal-Carrillo, guitarist Jeff Parker, and bassist Anna Butterss; the majority of that material stayed unreleased until International Anthem issued Lados B in October 2023. Co-produced by Villarreal-Carrillo with Dave Vettraino and Scott McNiece, mixed by the first two, the nine-track collection merges spontaneous improvisation across jazz, psychedelic rock, R&B, and blues with the percussionist’s distinctive handling of Latin salsa, jazz, and funk.
His birthplace, Panama City, and birth year of 1977 directly inform the album title. As a youngster he took up percussion and drums, later embracing punk wholeheartedly as a teenager and performing in Central American punk and hardcore circles, most notably with Panama City groups NOHAYDIA and 2 Huevos 1 Camino throughout the 1990s. Panamanian reggaeton drummer Freddy Sobers, known for his work with El General and Nando Boom, recognized his promise and mentored him, introducing an array of styles and textures with the exact counsel that “everything from Rush to reggaeton to Chick Corea to salsa music” mattered and that mastery required absorbing every idiom.
He relocated to the United States in the early 2000s, spending his initial decade on a farm near Woodstock, Illinois, where he earned his livelihood as a social worker linking migrant laborers to local health services while devoting the bulk of his hours to raising two daughters. Any remaining moments went toward drumming; online connections led to collaborations, and he also performed with nearby Latin folk players. Greater involvement in Chicago’s music community gradually increased his gig schedule, prompting a decisive move to the city itself in 2011 with the explicit goal of pursuing music full time.
Another ten years followed as a sideman across multiple genres, during which he simultaneously established himself as a DJ with encyclopedic knowledge of global sounds. In 2013 he helped launch Dos Santos Anti-Beat Orquesta alongside vocalist/keyboardist/guitarist Alex Chavez, bassist Jaime Garza, guitarist Nathan Karagianis, and conguero Peter Vale—all musicians steeped in pan-Latin forms and active in everything from traditional groups to jam bands. Their self-titled debut arrived two years later and earned widespread praise from indie outlets for uniting Mexican and broader Latin idioms with surf, prog, psychedelia, garage rock, jazz, R&B, and further elements. The Fonografic EP surfaced on Electric Cowbell Records the following year, produced by Beto Martínez of Grammy Award-winning Grupo Fantasma. In 2017 the band partnered with Grupo Fantasma/Brownout offshoot Money Chicha on the split single “Summit Sessions” for Sonorama Discos. By then Dos Santos had become a fixture on the Chicago circuit, carrying their distinctive American sound on national tours before returning to sign with International Anthem and issue Logos in June 2018, followed by additional touring; that same year they also released a split-cassette single with Money Chicha.
Beyond Dos Santos, Villarreal-Carrillo recorded and toured with Elliot and Natalie Bergman’s Wild Belle while joining Chicago’s Ida y Vuelta, a Pilsen-based live group devoted to son jarocho—the Mexican traditional style from the Sotavento region that merges African, Spanish-Arabic, and Indigenous roots with poetic expression.
From Dos Santos’s earliest days he had aimed to develop a personal studio project reflecting his full musical perspective. Informal experiments in 2017 and 2018 approached his vision without fully realizing it until a 2019 Los Angeles performance ignited the decisive spark. There he captured an impromptu session with Elliot Bergman, Jeff Parker, Kellen Harrison, and Chicano Batman’s Bardo Martínez; its energy convinced him to expand the material into a complete album.
When the pandemic arrived in 2020 he refused to delay the project, driving to Los Angeles with his drum kit and staging four lengthy, socially distanced outdoor sessions with collaborators while also recording in Chicago alongside International Anthem associates. After these sessions he spent most of 2021 layering and refining the tracks in his home studio. That year he additionally co-formed the psychedelic Latin soul duo Los Sundowns with Grupo Fantasma/Money Chicha guitarist and producer Beto Martínez, releasing the singles “Los Angeles” and “Al Final de la Tarde” plus a six-track self-titled EP. He rejoined Dos Santos to complete City of Mirrors, issued in October 2021 and the band’s strongest commercial performer to date, though pandemic aftereffects restricted touring.
Villarreal-Carrillo and producer Dave Vettraino persisted with final adjustments, incorporating extra percussion and atmospheric elements, editing, and assembly at International Anthem throughout 2021, with further contributions arriving late in the process: New York jazz trumpeter Aquiles Navarro of Irreversible Entanglements recorded his part at his family home in Panama, Los Angeles violinist/arranger Marta Sofia Honer supplied string arrangements for two tracks, and a last overdub session took place at Bardo Martínez’s garage studio. Once the record coalesced, he named it Panamá 77 to honor both his birthplace and birth year; International Anthem released it in May 2022.
Portions of the album originated in a two-day October 2020 Los Angeles session featuring Villarreal-Carrillo, guitarist Jeff Parker, and bassist Anna Butterss; the majority of that material stayed unreleased until International Anthem issued Lados B in October 2023. Co-produced by Villarreal-Carrillo with Dave Vettraino and Scott McNiece, mixed by the first two, the nine-track collection merges spontaneous improvisation across jazz, psychedelic rock, R&B, and blues with the percussionist’s distinctive handling of Latin salsa, jazz, and funk.
Albums
