A new album of previously unreleased music recorded in Havana by Ibrahim Ferrer, Omara Portuondo, Eliades Ochoa and other artists who participated in the Buena Vista Social Club sessions is set for release in early 2015.

The album, provisionally titled Lost and Found, will go on sale in February or March, says Nick Gold, the head of the London-based label World Circuit, which produced the original 1997 Buena Vista Social Club album and a series of subsequent albums featuring Buena Vista artists.
“There are a couple of unreleased tracks from the original Buena Vista album,” Gold tells Billboard. “Also recordings by Ibrahim when he had the big band with five saxophones and three trumpets, unreleased tracks by Omara, and [recordings of] Eliades Ochoa when he was completely on his own, with just voice and guitar.

“There’s a very good album’s worth of tracks,” says Gold of the album, which will be distributed by Nonesuch in the United States.

Buena Vista was a sleeper hit that became a worldwide phenomenon, selling close to 2 million copies in the United States alone, according to Nielsen SoundScan. The label puts worldwide sales at over 12 million.

“It was being played everywhere,” Gold recalls. “…People who walked in [and heard it] would always look around to see where the band was. It brings you very close to the experience of the music being played.”

Reflecting on why the original album struck a chord around the world, Gold nods to the timing of the release, just when Cuba was starting to court tourist dollars after the breakup of the Soviet Union. “It had this element of forbidden fruit.”

Gold waxes nostalgic about the first time the artists got together with him and producer Ry Cooder in the studio. “It was incredibly exciting making that record,” he says. “You were meeting all these people with amazing stories. It was very obvious something special was happening. We didn’t know then how much it would sell, but we felt like all we needed to do was let people know about these people and they would embrace them.”

Portuondo, Ochoa and other surviving members of the group, along with younger musicians, are currently on a Buena Vista “Adios” tour in Europe. A U.S, leg of the tour is expected to be announced soon, coinciding with the new album of previously unreleased material.

Meanwhile, Gold has produced another Cuban music album that will be out on Nov. 25. Cha, Cha, Cha spotlights the vintage re-mastered recordings of singer Abelardo Barroso and Orquesta Sensacion, a band emblematic of the '50s mambo era.

“Abelardo Barroso is just one of the best singers I’ve ever heard,” Gold says. “The quality of his voice is fantastic, the phrasing, the rhythm; and he’s got incredible personality. As soon as you hear him and the band, you know it’s them. It’s almost genteel with the violins and the lightness, but it’s incredibly funky and sexy.”