Lido Pimienta - LA ENTREVISTA: Part 1 + "Agua"

Photo by Ruthie Titus @ruthtitus

Lido Pimienta is back! Almost six years have passed since Color was first released and a lot has happened to our Colombian darling. Club Fonograma has been blessed with the best come back offering ever: an exclusive, in depth interview, along with “Agua”, the first single off highly anticipated second LP La Papessa.

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Souad Martin-Saoudi: Color dates back to 2010 and the release of La Papessa has been rumored for some time… Here at CF, we’ve been anticipating it since 2012! Could your give us an insight into your life, and walk us through the evolving shape of La Papessa?

Lido Pimienta: Since the Color era, Ive been keeping to myself and my family. Color was a wonderful introduction to life outside of my naive/Utopian head. It all seems like a blur now. It is almost as if it never even happened. This question could be answered in many ways, and take several turns, but to keep a 6 year old story short (or at least try): I took a break from the music industry after realizing I was not fit for it, I was not prepared for the amount of ugly business that happens behind the scenes. I was the target of many social climbers, one label runner in particular used me to get his artists a European tour by using my name to do so (and almost succeeded at it), he claimed he was my booker, manager and lied to me and bookers down there...This episode in particular made me take several steps back and stop pursuing a career in music. Sometimes I wonder if perhaps some of the negative experiences I lived back then were some if not the same reasons why Rita Indiana decided to stop performing music live.

The first major change in my life after Color, was that my husband and I separated. Also known as Golden Death Music, my ex was not only my family, father of my kid, but also the genius co-creator, musician and producer behind the Color LP. The songs were made in our tiny home while breastfeeding, being young, dumb and excited creatives amongst a vibrant artistic and musical community in London, Ontario. Canada was also a new country to both of us. "Luces" was our goodbye song, the last one we worked on together. Still one of my favorites.



After our separation, I moved to Toronto, Ontario and decided to pursue a degree in Art Criticism and Curatorial Practice. I moved to the big city with my kid and dedicated my time to my studies while figuring out life as a single mother.

The first year was really rough and I was having panic and anxiety attacks regularly, I kept thinking there was no way I could do it on my own, without him. In one of those many insecurity stricken moments, music pal Ulises Hadjis read my Tarot (via Skype) and revealed to me the power of The High Priestess: La Papessa - A female figure, sitting on her throne with a book on her lap. The symbolism behind it opened my eyes to my own inner strength, as a womxn, mother, as a thinker, planner - I wrote the first song for it, "Ruleta", the song would help me go through the pain and fear I felt at the time. Sometimes being alone is the best, and accepting that reality proves impossible to accept at times, actually...much too often.

I started working on songs after my child would go to sleep. Back then I shared my bedroom with him. Toronto is really expensive so I shared my room to save up some cash. I built him a bed out of milk-crates and wood under my loft bed and I bought a refurbished desktop, speakers, a little mixer, and several “how to ableton” YouTube tutorials later I had me a little demo ready. No band, no friends (in music), no family, but a cute 4 song EP nonetheless.

One lucky night a curious white boy heard my solo set at some gallery show. He contacted me and asked if we could play together. I said something like, “yes, but only if you would do so dressed in a cute dress”, but obviously more than a “requirement”, my intent with such question was mainly to make sure this cis-white dude was not going to end up being some homo/trans-phobic asshole. I showed him my songs and we started working them in a tiny studio he had behind a gallery called Creatures. His name was Kvesche Bijons-Ebacher, he became my son instantly. We started playing shows and I started getting lots of attention, well, enough attention in the art/indie Toronto scene, enough to justify doing the crazy music thing again.

Another curious white boy approached me, he was friends and an old collaborator of Kvesche’s. His name was Blake Blakely, an intellectual and visionary who (of course) showed up at my door with a Moog under his arm: “Hi, I decided I don't want to do a remix for you anymore, I want to play with you instead”, and just like that, we started building the songs more, in my bedroom, we brought all of our gear together and started the machine.

I started getting booked for more shows, and we played with different brass people each time. Always different, trying new things, the stage was my playground. I would write these wild parts for woodwind and brass, but no one from that jazz, classical world would stick around to play with us, though. Those people in this city are way too busy! That was until Robert Drisdelle, composer and multi-instrumentalist, heard about me and how I liked to collaborate with different live musicians and approached me. He then showed up to my house...with a damn electric guitar. I was so confused...I told him “guitar is not going to cut it, I am against guitar, there’s too much of it in the world, I don’t want it in my album, what else you got?” He threw his guitar out the window and brought me his beautiful bass clarinet. And that was it, the band was formed.

We kept playing more shows, perfected them, wrote new tunes, experimented with visuals… One particular show caught the attention of long-time supporter of Lido Pimienta, who is also A Tribe Called Red’s manager, Guillaume Decouflet. He offered us the opportunity to tour with Tribe. We were so excited, we felt a new reviving energy, It was all forming, it was all working out. We went on tour with them, and we killed it. Guillaume and Tribe gave us a fantastic opportunity to perform my songs in front of thousands of people, perfect the live show, learn about contracts, royalties, booking events, essentially, an Industry of Music education, all the stuff I was too inexperienced and vulnerable to deal with first time around for Color Era. Touring with Tribe, gave me a healthy and safe place to educate and empower myself. Words cannot describe how much I love those men.

In September 2013, my younger brother, father of one, took his own life. A young beautiful life, gone. It was and still is the most shocking, painful and difficult thing my family and I have had to experience. Ever. It took me a long time to recover. I mean, I still have not recovered from it, and I might not ever recover from it. A part of you dies when your sibling dies. There are no words to explain. I had to put La Papessa and everything related to it on hold. This chunk of my life is also a blur for me, I keep waiting to wake up and have everything just turn out to be nothing more but a terrible nightmare.

School got really hard for me after this, there was no space for concentrating, I was putting on a front, a facade, pretended that everything was OK. I hurt myself by doing this. I also started working in arts organization more, I was worried about making money and providing emotional support for my mother, my sister, my brother’s girlfriend and their son. It took a while, a long while before I felt I was ready to play/record again. But eventually you know, art/music is what I do, so it became my safe heaven...singing...under the moon…

Slowly but surely it happened, seasons changed, time passed, and my heart was sewn up with the delicate yet strong silk thread of friends, chosen family, my sisterhood and collaborators in the city. I thank them deeply for their love. We played some shows and decided to go for it again, we made plans to go to the studio, we played a couple new shows, we were ready to lay the tracks down, we were on fire.

But then, life had yet another dark joke awaiting. My amazing friend and genius collaborator, Blake Blakely (who’s behind “Agua” beat/production) got seriously ill. My world came apart. The new-found stability was shaking, was fragile, got torn apart. We knew the road would be difficult, but we decided to continue working together. We figured out ways to make it work, around hospital visits - plotting world domination. I took a month off, I went to back to Colombia, to visit my brother’s grave for the first time since his passing, I stayed with my family, in the north coast of Colombia, my family is Indigena Wayuu, I needed to be home. The desert air, the ocean, the sun, fresh fruit and my aunties’ embrace filled my soul.

Photo Credit: Nic Pouliot / rockphoto.ca

Upon returning to Canada, and after seeing with my own eyes all the damage done to the indigenous population there, by the racist experiment the Colombian government, on purpose and in collaboration with Canadian, US and European mining corporation, I knew it was time to go back to it. I knew that the pain and struggle experienced by that little girl who once posted a song to her Myspace and Julieta Venegas really liked, had to get her shit together and use her voice for something good. So I am back with “Agua”. In retrospect, this album, La Papessa, is the narrative of a girl who was living in a dream world, but then life made sure she got shaken, woken - and I am now at last, more than ever: Woke.

Stay tuned. Part 2 of our interview with Lido Pimienta will be published tomorrow. 

Video: Ela Minus - "Kiddo"

With a spot on Festival NRMAL's 2016 lineup and her inclusion on Ornamento Inútil (vol. 26 of el amarillo's compilation series), it was only a matter of time for Ela Minus to appear on our radar. Gabriela Jimeno, the voice behind the project, communicates in a special diminutive. "Kiddo", taken from the forthcoming First Words EP, delivers glacial textures and ornamental beats. The Colombian singer even expands her palette with English lyrics. Sure the vocals may be chirpy, but don’t confuse it as too delicate. Gabriela’s delivery is hyper, dead set on convincing us to follow our hearts ( “even when it hurts”).

Ela Minus’ First Words EP drops December 11 and is produced by Andrés Nusser (Astro).

Las hermanas - ep

ep, La hermanas
Discos Muertos, Colombia
Rating: 85
by Pierre Lestruhaut

One of the more frustrating imperatives of being a music blogger is the need for constantly having to shallowly and quickly dismiss a lot of music for lack of listening time. Doesn't have a nice looking cover art... NEXT. Didn't attract attention from relevant blogs... NEXT. Cites Zoé as an influence... NEXT. Surfing the internet for new music actually feels like using Tinder, the popular dating app where you like or reject people's profiles almost exclusively by looking at their photos. Eventually when I found myself faced with the possibility of listening to a cryptic project from Bogotá, despite the fact that there wasn't any recommendation from trusted tastemakers, no reference to who was involved in the project, and that quite honestly I'd never even heard of Discos Muertos either, I still decided to give it a try, and found myself instantly hooked from the first few minutes of hitting play.

On first impression, Las hermanas is an act that bursts with inventiveness: soul and jazz strings cut and pasted into breathtaking soundscapes, bolero vocal samples laid over música de plancha orchestras. And all of this supposedly coming from the sampling of old vinyl records, hitting the luscious sweet spot between the crate digging swagger of Stones Throw and the hazy abstraction of vaporwave, but with a tinge of Latin pop in its palette. I'll be honest, I initially didn't want to find out who was really making this music, and was willing to not only accept, but feel rather intrigued by the fact that I wouldn't know who was behind this intoxicatingly arcane music. But eventually, such desire for abstruseness lasts little in the internet era, and I quickly stumbled across an interview for Vice where it's revealed that a certain Diego Cuéllar (from previously unheard of noise project Mc Perro) is the man behind Las hermanas.

Cuéllar qualifies his music as experimental, which always feels like a cop-out of sorts -- if people don't like it then they're probably just not ready for it. Certainly, this is the type of music that's difficult to write about, its appeal is expressionist more than anything else, yet there's a strict formalism to it that makes the EP a coherent work as a whole. His choices for samples, instrumentation, and song structure remain flexible enough that it stays away from any thoughtless reductions of his craft (such as: "J Dilla if he had lots of Latin records"), while the modus operandi is almost always inflexible: samples over a steady beat. It's been almost 10 years since J Dilla passed away so we can safely ditch the "experimental" tag that's put on the brand of vinyl-sampled, Ableton-chopped, and MPC-shaped beats made by Cuéllar.

From a commercial and cultural standpoint it remains more difficult to sell than, say, Peruvian digital cumbia. But despite the fact that it's disconnected, scene-wise, there's something about the haze of old 60's soul and plancha records being sampled that's wholly inviting, even if it doesn't have the ear-candiness of El sueño de la casa propia's more pop-oriented samples. It's a hip-hop album in the same way most of the Stones Throw and Brainfeeder catalogs are: it's not hip-hop in the institutionalized form of breakbeats, sellin' dope, and gang signs, but rather hip-hop as the communion of diversity that is achieved by looking elsewhere for inspiration. In the context of contemporary Latin electronica, it's a stellar addition to the crop of producers that are successfully revamping the nucleus of past Latin pop music into something completely new.

Shakira - Shakira

Shakira, Shakira
RCA, Colombia
Rating: 67
by Andrew Casillas 

Until fairly recently, I considered Shakira to be the closest thing Latin American would have to “our” Prince. Each has a wildly eclectic sound, a willingness to be overtly sexual (both musically and in public), and an underrated musicianship. But as the years have passed, it seems like Shakira has outgrown the Prince comparison. In perspective, Shakira is really “our” Jay Z. Each had a substantial run of highly innovative and highly influential albums, along with a charismatic public persona. Subsequently, the two diverged further and further into their own celebrity, to where their careers are now sustained entirely on their existence as Shakira™ and Jay Z™, corporate entities.

That’s not to say that either artist is stunted from their genius. Indeed, each is still capable of drafting a stunner. Jay Z can go through the motions on his albums all he likes, but when inspired, the dude can seem untouchable (“Empire State of Mind,” “Roc Boys,” “Niggas in Paris”). Shakira, likewise, can still be gracefully sultry (“Antes de las Seis”), popularly singular (“Hips Don’t Lie”), and brilliantly batshit (the still unfuckwithable “Loba”). So we can pine for the days of consecutive instant masterpieces all we want, but those days are over. Instead, both Jay Z and Shakira are hustling to stay relevant as they veer further away from their 20s. Staying relevant in the fucked up world of pop stardom means forcing yourself to become the biggest stars of your pop music niche. Be everywhere, sell everything, evolve from tireless worker to CEO. Blame The Voice and Rocawear all you want, but, without them, Shakira and Jay Z would never get as many opportunities to indulge their musical side.

Going into her second decade as a Multimedia Superstar, Shakira represents Shakira’s attempt to capitalize on the peak of her celebrity following her new roles as a mother and as a judge on America’s highest rated reality show. Therefore, it’s no surprise that Shakira attempts to deliver something for everyone. And in varying ways, the album succeeds at that. First single “Can’t Remember to Forget You” is representative of the parent album’s theme. The Bruno Mars-like blend of The Police and pop radio sheen is simultaneously inoffensive and entirely effective. You feel like you can chart the song’s creation in a boardroom. Regardless, it’s uncompromisingly Shakira, not to mention an opportunity for Rihanna to do more than act as a hook girl. It’s also a great showcase for Shakira as sexually aggressive songstress. Her ferocious yelps during the final chorus are organically erotic in a way that the track’s gratuitously sexed-up music video wishes it could be. Speaking of unnecessarily sexed-up, there’s “Empire,” the album’s second track and second single. There’s a lot to praise for the sheer power balladry of the song, but the heavy metaphors prove too much for something instrumentally over the top already. In fact, it sounds almost like a Shakira parody (notably, “Empire” is one of two songs on Shakira not written by the album’s namesake).

The first half of the album is shockingly derivative, even if there’s some fruit. “You Don’t Care About Me” is a really nice slice of Gotye-rock, and “Cut Me Deep” is a deft bit of pop reggae. However, the less we speak of official World Cup anthem “Dare (La La La)” the better. I’ll just mention that it’s pretty much a re-write of “La Copa de la Vida” set to the tune of “Spice Up Your Life.” Shakira’s second half is where things get interesting on a macro level. Musically it’s a mixed bag. There’s the big Blake Shelton duet “Medicine,” an all too obvious attempt at country music radio airplay; there’s “The One Thing,” our obligatory motherhood track; and a few other tracks (“23,” “Spotlight,” “Broken Record”) that reveal Shakira’s (or at least her PR team’s) greatest influence: Taylor Swift's Red.

This makes sense considering the album’s latent purpose: in order to dominate the market, why not look to who’s already dominating the market? That the Swift-inspired numbers don’t marginalize Shakira are a testament to her strengths as a singer (“Broken Record” is actually quite fabulous). But they’re also way too straightforward. Even when her previous English album She Wolf (a lesser record than Shakira) failed, it wasn’t because Shakira played it safe. Indeed, that album was almost too extreme in its early adoption of EDM-inspired globo-pop. Shakira is still a good pop record and something that she can base another 25 years of a career on, but hopefully Shakira can strike a balance between these last two records going forward, or risk lapsing into Jay Z’s current phase as the rap game 1981 Rolling Stones—20 years going strong with only 20% of the effort.

And what if Shakira ends up lapsing? Meaning, in effect, only making music as an excuse to go on tour and on television and keeping the coffers full. Would it still be important to cover artists like these? It certainly wouldn’t be because Shakira needed the exposure or our recognition. The reason that Shakira’s career is worthy of continued critical evaluation is because she represents the breakthrough that we’d love any of our favorite artists to achieve. Unlike other crossover stars like Ricky Martin or Juanes, she didn’t achieve a sudden lapse in popularity or stagnate at minor celebrity-hood (indeed, Juanes seems sadly resigned to a life as the token Latin musician at every Grammy ceremony whenever Gloria Estefan is unavailable). What Shakira does with her career, or rather, what she chooses to do with her career, is instructive for what happens whenever any of our favorite artists break through. And there’s the key: for all intents and purposes, Shakira seems fully in charge of her career. And she’s still damn good at being Shakira. Even if she’s lapsed into the Shakira™ stage of her career, she can still lead the way for the next Latin American critical darling turned superstar. And if that leaves you feeling a bit discouraged, don’t blame Shakira or Jay Z, blame the system.

MP3: Planes - "Cosas Importantes"

Over the weekend, Camilo Lara (Mexican Institute of Sound) urged me to listen to what he claimed to be the best new wave music he’s heard in a while. To my surprise, he pointed to a band from Colombia. And I say it’s a surprise because that country’s recent indie success stories (Bomba Estereo, Systema Solar) shared an easier-to-export tropical infusion. Planes (Estudios Universales), in the other hand, will have to percolate in different ways. But let’s not underestimate the power of nostalgia (look at the rising success of bands like El Último Vecino and Univers). “Cosas Importantes,” off Planes' forthcoming debut album, Las Américas, is heart-trenching material for anyone who’s ever needed music adjacent to skylines. Those open vocal tracts in the song's bridge justify the seamless absence of a definite vocal chorus, whose space is instead, occupied by a grandeur instrumentation that raptures through melodic escapism. Grab the MP3 via Soundcloud.

Lucrecia Dalt - Syzygy

Syzygy, Lucrecia Dalt
Human Ear Music, Colombia
Rating: 75
by Glòria Guirao Soro

Syzygy defines a straight line configuration of three celestial bodies, such as the moon, the sun and the planets. The title Colombian musician Lucrecia Dalt has chosen for her third album gives us already a hint about the character of this record, released by Berlin label MEH last month. After having spent the last years in Barcelona, where she released her first two albums (Congost, 2010 and Commutus, 2012), Lucrecia has since moved to Berlin. Syzygy was recorded in her apartment in Barcelona and reflects an atmosphere of loneliness and intimacy, of experimentation and a wish for abstraction.

The word “syzygy” has also other meanings, most of them related to the concept of union, such as pairing, union of opposites, close union of non-related bodies. The songs in this album present a union of opposites by being suspended (in-gravity) and heavy and solid, at the same time. Singing in the lowest register, Lucrecia’s voice blends with the bass loops creating a dark and intimate soundscape. Syzygy is an album about loneliness, confusion and estrangement, a collection of very solemn musical episodes that wrap the listener with a mantle of gloom and gravity. Lucrecia Dalt mixes here a multiplicity of sounds, effects and variations coming off to an apparently very intuitive composition that is actually an overly calculated process of abstraction. Even the song titles are enigmatic and contribute to the gloomy and uncanny atmosphere the album suggests.

Syzygy, as a bedroom produced ensemble, reminds us of other recent works of this genre such as Don The Tiger’s Varadero, Laurel Halo’s Chance Of Rain or even Julia Holter’s and Molly Nilsson’s last albums, but less danceable. The opening song, “Glosolalia” displays a combination of sound progressions that is present all throughout the album: “Soliloquios” or “Murmur” are other examples of circular sound waves twirling around weightless. On the other side, there are also hypersubtle musical landscapes such as “Levedad” and “Volavérunt,” which are based on low frequency drones with Lucrecia’s whispering voice bringing the eerie and uncanny to a new level. This is a truly introspective album, we wouldn't expect something less from her. Headphones are highly encouraged.

Systema Solar - La Revancha del Burro

La Revancha del Burro, Systema Solar
Sambumbia, Colombia
Rating: 70
By Monika Fabian

A sophomore album carries an ungodly amount of weight. An act can be boxed in by past achievements, pressures to innovate, expectations of growth—all the while negotiating the slippery path between retreading past terrain and losing one’s way in experimentation. Perhaps it’s poetic then that Systema Solar’s second LP, La Revancha del Burro, elevates a creature known for withstanding burdensome loads and long distances as its mascot. The real intention behind it, of course, is to convey the Colombian septet’s philosophical commitment to being a people’s soundsystem. Like Velandia y La Tigra before them, Systema adopted the burro as a metaphorical icon for the working man.

Judging by the 12-track release, it would seem that the burro’s revenge is to make the people dance. A noble and storied tradition, to be sure: from ancestral Colombian cumbia to South Bronx-born hip hop, el baile de los pobres (#NoCalle13) has been nourishing dance music for time immemorial. Revancha’s strongest tracks tap into that dignity and universality of dancing in spite of everything. “El Botón del Pantalón,” a champeta about economic woes, is obviously rooted in the Afro-Colombian Caribbean but its rhythm guitar unearths, or maybe even grows, a family tree limb between champeta, Congolese soukous, and Peruvian cumbia.

Systema also ventures into unexplored sounds to varying success. On “La Esquina del Movimiento,” a collabo with La Sonora Matancera, Systema channels El Joe and his fertile, Afro-Caribbean “Joe Son.” The urban bachata-opening duet between vocalist John Primera and Blondie’s Debbie Harry, “Artificial,” is a mostly-favorable, cross-cultural foray into mainstream Latin pop. (The ironic juxtaposition of a punk legend and a raspy-voiced rapper crooning about fakeness and materialism in a genre rife with sleek and showy production values is worth the Play button click alone).

However, whereas Systema Solar champions the collective, Revancha mostly opts for a cohesive voice. As Carlos shrewdly observed in 2009, “Systema Solar works better when all its members unify and explode than with individual tracks that fail to be memorable.” Primera has impressively malleable chops, but its exaggerated moments are at times overwhelming when untempered by more voices, as evidenced on “Maria Casquito.” Also, Systema Solar has gifted lyricists in its ranks. We hear some clever rhyming in “Eso Ke Es?” and “Antena” but the LP generally favors EDM-y production and shorter, catchier choruses and mini-flows over proper hip hop verses (a la “Mi Kolombia” or “El Amarillo”). “Machete,” for example, which is reportedly about a Colombian law requiring farmers to use genetically-modified seeds, almost feels like a genetically-modified Systema Solar track.

The albums definitely belong in the same verbena (party) though. Systema—with its incisive socioeconomic commentary atop Colombian hip-hop and dance music—would be the tone-setter that gets the crowd amped and thinking. Revancha would play much later, deep into the night when dancing is all that matters, and finish right around when a burro begins its day.

MP3: Lucrecia Dalt - "Glosolalia"

As I told my Fonograma colleagues as soon as I came upon Lucrecia Dalt’s new song and lead track from her upcoming album, Syzygy, we’ve probably been ignoring her for far too long. The Colombian-born, Barcelona-based musician released her sophomore effort, Commotus, last year (and has had her name appear on the blog through collaborations with Los Macuanos and Los Amparito), an album with an apocalyptic cover whose eerie soundscapes and icy bass action earned her comparisons to Angelo Badalementi’s Twin Peaks soundtrack. If there’s one thing the emerging crop of Latin electronic troubadours have excelled at a lot better than Latin folk troubadours is at developing their own signature sonic environment. With her latest track, “Glosolalia,” she crafts yet another puzzling piece that focuses on mood rather than melody and this time feels like a perfect fit for the psychotic tension and uneasy anticipation of Jeff Nichols’ Take Shelter. Just as I will be in a few months, Lucrecia Dalt is a civil engineer. And if there’s one thing about the discipline that seems to have overlapped with her music, it’s the understanding of your own environment’s unpredictability and constant evolution, how sometimes one can still be amazed despite years of study and experience. Grab the track on the Soundcloud player below. Syzygy is out on October 15 via Human Ear Music.

Video: Lido Pimienta - "Rouletta"

When we first fell in love with Lido Pimienta, she was singing about moving through good vibrations, about healing the soul with music, and about designing life as one would please. Time changes us in unexpected ways. The release of “Luces” last year unveiled a Lido Pimienta that had been in and out of the road to redemption, granting us access to a nuanced depth of her persona. Toronto-based music collective StudioFeed has documented the transition of the Colombian virtuoso in this gorgeously shot clip in which Pimienta goes fully confessional about the changes in her life that have consequently changed her composition. Her story is painfully familiar but, as Lido confesses, it’s the event that has pushed her to find the most honest of grounds. As she preps her bound-to-go-darker sophomore album, Lido is giving us a little taste of it in the new track “Rouletta.” Lido’s performance is ethereal and, at least for a couple of minutes, the world aches alongside her. As two of her closest friends in the biz (Gepe and Javiera Mena) would say, “es una tristeza tan linda.”

MP3: Leidi Li - "Maté a mi novio"

After singing about sex, love and rumba, the lies of politicians, and the female obsession with physical beauty, Bomba Estereo songstress Liliana Saumet gets her hands dirty with a new track on murder. Under the name of Leidi Li, Saumet takes the warm voice-controversial lyrics combination to the next level. Through a trip hop, downtempo beat, produced by no other than Saumet’s sweetheart (Pedro D’Alessandro under his own alter-ego, AOIM), Leidi Li coolly describes by what means she proceeded to heartlessly murder, chop up, and bury her fiancé. “Maté a mi novio” explores manslaughter through graphic rhymes, punctuating the track with soothing water sounds; this juxtaposition creates a weird, comforting, yet chill vibe. Dedicating the song to all the bored girls - las chicas que estan aburridas - Saumet cleverly plays the doppelgänger card and leaves us all remorseless for the fallen evil twin.

♫♫♫ "Mate a mi novio"

Video: Lido Pimienta - "La Rata"

“Quiero matar, quiero matar,” sings Lido Pimienta in the menacing entrance of “La Rata.” That vocal sequence finds the Colombian virtuoso lamenting a world of disappointment as she adjusts her emotional canvas to confront her political discourse. “A strong, dissident and beautiful piece for the global pop avalanche in search of reformation.” Under the directing lens of Guillermo Restrepo Cervantes and featuring gorgeous masks crafted by the singer herself, this video dignifies the monumental song quite remarkably. Lido’s confrontation with the camera comments on individual and national identity while keeping things seductive and a bit gangster (which would explain the song’s inclusion on the soundtrack of HBO’s TV series Capadocia). “La Rata” is part of Lido Pimienta’s debut LP Color, recently published on vinyl by LA-based art community collective KU DE TA. And, no joke, this vinyl has to be the most gorgeous acquisition in our entire record collection.

Il Abanico - Crossing Colors

Crossing Colors, Il Abanico
Independiente, Colombia/USA
Rating: 75
By Carlos Reyes

Swirls of subtle beats, nuances of rhythmic lines, and beguiling lyrical passages comprise the beautifully structured, and overall gorgeous debut by Boston-based act Il Abanico. Juliana Ronderos and Nicolas Losada merge the warmth of their native Colombia with the windy life of Boston, crafting five self-produced pieces that go from the romantic to the sardonic. Just a bit too glossy for the DIY panorama, and just a bit too splendidly messy for the academic, Il Abanico’s widespread premise outlines the start of an exciting duo to follow.

Il Abanico plays with a wide-range of instrumental inquisition, executing notes beautifully more often than not. Crossing Colors sequences hints of domestic bliss with the spectrum of a flowershop, a smart (and cleaner than you think) mediation of the artists’ lives and the streets they walk on. Leading track “Keep Calling” is like a nice shower of broken sincerity, where the band builds a folksy atmosphere (hinting romance) and later, (through chord-progressions) transports it into sadomasochistic territory. In the mystic “The Light," the band shows how it is possible to maintain a sense of lyrical autonomy (“awkward silence, dark, and embracing light”), telling a whole different story with its pristine, beautifully revealed delicacy.

The heart of the album (and only track in Español) is like Juan Molina meeting Natalia Lafourcade (in her y La Forquetina era). “Solo quiero respirar el silencio en el mar,” sings Juliana in a rising, almost vigilant voice. Heavy rhythm sections and tender vocal-driven passages follow until crashing into an inevitable climax that feels like a giant wave that either vanishes or elevates our subject’s hopeful return to the shoreline. Closing tracks “Cold Outside” and “Songs of Love” point in the right direction and are perhaps the most preeminently produced numbers, and that makes them feel a bit disjointed from the rest of the chaotic cascade. Although not entirely round, Crossing Colors is a record of serious revelation. Add a few more songs to the mix (hopefully in Spanish) and we could be talking about an essential. For what it is, it’s pretty darn good.

♫♫♫ "Solo"
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Video: Bomba Estéreo - "Ponte Bomb"

After a triumphant performance at Vive Latino, Bomba Estéreo is about to embark on an extensive U.S. tour and they’ve just premiered a weird looking, yet entertaining clip for “Ponte Bomb” (part of Levi’s Pioneer Revivival Sessions, and recently released as Ponte Bomb EP by Nacional Records). The Technotronic cover demanded an over-the-top set of images and plenty of movement, and that’s exactly what we get in this clip helmed by graffiti artist ‘Chanoir’. Li Saumet commands every frame with energetic wisdom, and when she isn’t in the frame, we get some fluffy creatures showing off their fur & dance moves. Everything is shamelessly low budget, but they’ve managed to visit the Yo Gabba Gabba weird cousins and squeeze them into RoseArt, impressive.

Video: Esteman - "El Distractor"

We told you he was no one-hit-wonder, Colombia’s new pop heartthrob is a gentlemen making the most glamorous (if theatrical) pop in Latin America. Esteban Meneses, better known as Esteman has new great single to follow “No Te Metas En Mi Facebook” and “La Cosita Tropical”, his latest song “El Distractor” is already a hit in Colombia and is quickly making its way to the rest of the continent. The catchy tune has an equally glossy video directed by Salomon Simhon and Esteman himself; it’s bright and smoky, like Rob Marshall meeting Punch Drunk Love at a Sunday parade. Esteman’s spaghetti legs are to die for, and he knows how to ‘square’ his voice on parallel to his body, like all those great men he mentions on the song. The song has a pretty good English version titled “The Actor.” It’s always weird to use these words, but he was born to do this. There's no official word on the release of his debut album, but it could arrive this very same year.

MP3: Michel & Lilibeth - "Suerte y Muerte"

We might scare off every purist rocker among our readers with this one. Colombian blog El Amarill0 introduced us to Michel & Lilibeth, a peculiar and very underground champeta duo making huge buzz in Barranquilla. The infrastructure of the Colombian music industry is somewhat concerning for interesting acts like Michel & Lilibeth, who rely on word of mouth and local radio stations to spread their music. They’re so underground we couldn’t find any profile at any of the social networks. “Suerte y Muerte” is a half-baked hit, the kind of modest song that’s on its way to becoming a popular hit. It’s also a catchy and unexpected melodic piece in all its middling practices.

Its excess of everything is ultimately why the song works, that passionate cheesy intro justifies all of the song’s unexpected shifts. The upbeat vocals are so high they sound like jj, the actual sound is closer to Capullo and Bomba Estereo. The champeta goes through a cut-rate disco loop just as a guy in the song argues the sky is crying his pains. “Suerte y Muerte” has as much dramatic ambition as a telenovela, yet it’s got the personality and warmth of a block party. Despite getting hundreds of thousands of plays on YouTube already, no one has yet to find their identity.

♫♫♫ "Suerte y Muerte"

Video: Systema Solar - "Malpalpitando"

If like us, you’re having trouble departing yourself from the beauty of Rita Indiana’s El Juidero (obra maestra absoluta), you may want to consider Systema Solar as a way to keep your world rolling. After over a year of their self-title debut release, these Colombian tropical maniacs are finally getting the broad attention they deserve. The FADER premiered their latest video “Malpalpitando”, highlighting it as a “spirit journey.” This is the band’s down-to-the-bone moment in the album, every second of the song seems like a supreme skirmish between men and its nature. The imagery and coloring of the video add up to nothing less than a visual fest in the best of Juan Mora Catlett’s films.

Video + MP3: Plastic Caramelo - "Shake That Chocolate"

It’s been over two years since we featured Plastic Caramelo around these parts; CF was barely starting and cumbia digital was still very confusing to most pop culture blogs from the states. Their off-the-wall hit “Plastic Caramelo” was 2008’s party-starter song every edgy Latin DJ loved to play, but the song never really reached into mainstream despite its massive potential. It was also the first time we were introduced to Glampeta (Glam + Champeta). Our music taste has changed tremendously, but this is one hot band we can’t get enough of.

By now we had added them to the list of one-hit-wonders, but they are back with “Shake That Chocolate”, an essential download from the guys at Generation Bass, who describe the song as “Major Lazor meets Picoteros.” The call-and-response structure of the song should be enough for a second shot at commercial success, this is catchy as hell. There's nothing sexier than a cosmopolitan song that captures a nation's idiosyncratic, and turns it into a real global-pop hit.

♫♫♫ "Shake That Chocolate"

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MP3: Neoplatonics - "Cosmos"

“We’re just a little three-piece band learning how to play.” This is the humble self-description by Colombia’s up and coming band Neoplatonics. The Medellin-based band had small resources available, but they manage to craft a five-track debut EP that has generated significant buzz around our Colombian friends. Cosmos EP isn’t the most solid debut album we’ve heard lately, but it’s a nice start for a band that might not even realize they’re into something; the title track is enough to see there’s some promising material to work with. Cosmos is a strange little gem reminiscent to the early works of El Otro Yo or Charades; it is also a tribute to American astronaut Carl Sagan, a landmark author and scholar of cosmology and science. “Cosmos” is strangely catchy, particularly because there’s barely any true centerpiece chorus in the track, which makes it that much more interesting.

♫♫♫ "Cosmos"

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MP3: Bomba Estéreo "Pump Up The Jam"

If you have yet to download your free mp3 of Bomba Estereo’s cover of Technotronic’s “Pump Up The Jam” you really need to, it’s hot. This is part of the Levi’s Pioneer Revival Recording Sessions, which we weren’t even aware of. Other artists participating in this interesting project include Nas, She & Him, Dirty Projectors and The Shins. This is great news for Bomba Estereo who were recently named MTV Iggy’s Best New Band in the World. Also, they’ve been on fire with Mexico’s indie scene lately, who are a bit behind but finally acknowledging the magic of “Fuego” and their stellar debut Blow UP. It’s no secret we sometimes complain about Latin music’s projection as a savage exotic thing, but when it’s done as admirably as Bomba Estéreo does it here, we can’t help to feel proud. Grab it HERE.

Pernett feat. Lido Pimienta & Quantic Cover New Order's "Blue Monday"

This is a very special version of New Order’s “Blue Monday” by the always charming and full of layers Pernett in collaboration with fellow Colombian Lido Pimienta and Quantic. The dancehall anthem gets a twist on the hands of this Colombian genius, who keeps expanding his horizon so extraordinarily that he might just be the most creative guy in Tropical music today. Just like the dazzling Fonograma-featured “Perikitus!” Pernett continues to make “watery delicious fireworks.” This time it’s 7 minutes of steamy landscape accompanied by Lido’s emblematic soothing voice.