This week on Up First, with the president threatening to target Iran's civilian infrastructure, such as power plants and bridges, even as gas prices in the US continue to climb, what are the chances of an end to the war in Iran? Listen for updates every morning on the latest overnight news on Up First. Find us on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. I don't know. Tell me about your life, Yusuf. So what's going on? What's going on? Just being fabulous as per always. I'm just so happy that the trees are blooming and it's defrosting in New York and it feels like life is literally worth living again. Oh, this is good. I'm glad we're realizing that. Yeah, how are you? Fabulous. I'm equally as elated. I love sunshine. I love spring. I love spring energy. It is my favorite time of year. Me too. Felix, speaking of spring energy, is out with, I guess, a bad case of allergies. I don't really know. The point is, is it's always my favorite day. Don't tell Felix when he's like, I can't because then I'm like, well, I guess I can. So I'm really excited because we haven't really chatted about new music in a while. I immediately saw you brought some music that I am equally as excited about. So without further ado, from NPR Music, this is all Latino. I'm Ana María Ser. And I'm Isabela Gomez Armiento. Let the cheese make begin. Yay! Okay, so I want to let you go first because this first track that you brought was like, I was kind of bitter. I was like, wait, no, this was like my shining track album that I was so excited to bring, but it's okay because we can talk about it. We can talk about it. We can talk about it. Go ahead, Isa. I'm sorry to steal your thunder. My first song is, it's the opening track off of a new album by the Brazilian guitarist Fabiano Donacimento. And it's this really sweeping cinematic project that he worked on with the Vitor Santos Orchestra. So this is the song O Tempo from the new album Vila. God, I freaking love this whole album. I mean, this is what going on a walk in spring feels like. No, literally, I've been walking on listening to it. It's like sophisticated Disneyland. Yes, it totally feels a little bit like a Disney soundtrack. And it's like, you know, like the woodwinds come in and the strings come in and the guitar is like rooting all of it. And they're like, ooh, there's a bunny jumping. There goes a little fox scurrying across a yard. The first two minutes of the song are all instrumental and it's just so rich. And again, it's like, I love how all of the different parts of the orchestra sort of trickle in, but the guitar is really the constant that like keeps the whole thing together. And then by the time the vocals hit, like two and a half minutes into the song, it's just like, oh, what a lovely surprise. I didn't even know we were going to hear a human voice. I think the really amazing thing about him is you don't often get a guitarist who is so, he's a guitarist functioning as a conductor, both him and his instrument, right? And you don't see a lot of guitarists, I think, who want to necessarily or have the forethought to give that kind of, as you described it, cinematic space to their music. You know, it's very focused on like my chord progressions and, you know, this really cool whatever that I'm doing. And I think to recognize that these other very like seemingly could be overbearing instruments could be something to really support. And you see it, those instruments coming in and out throughout the whole album in this really tasteful way that like we said kind of creates this beautiful scene of newness, of spring, of growth, because he I think invites all of that beautiful instrumentation in. Yeah, I agree. It's like all of the different parts of the orchestra are in a constant dialogue with him and with one another. And it just, to me, this album really does feel like going on that first walk on the first spring day of the year and the little flowers are blooming and the trees are sprouting and everyone's outside and like all your neighbors are waving at each other. Maybe this is a very Park Slope Brooklyn experience. But I think if you live somewhere with seasons, like this is what it feels like. And especially I think to have this be like the opening track of the album, it really sets you up for what the entire project sort of the journey that the entire project takes you on. 100%. And thank you for bringing this in because I was about to be like, this is a bad look. I literally only bring in Brazilian music. So you did it for me. Oh, it's our year of leading into Brazil. It's our year of Brazil. So much air. It's just there's no other option at this point. Yeah. That was the song O Tempo of the new album Vila by Fabiano Donacimiento and the Vitor Santos Orchestra. Okay, I'm going to take us to Spain. I found these guys. Issa, I'm so curious what you think about this because it is like, I was listening to this album and I was like, this is really bizarre and I love it. I'm excited. I'm excited. The band, the duo is called La Blasuela and this track is called V12. Oh, funky bass line. Can't go wrong. Can't go wrong. This is giving Spanish parcels. That's what I thought. I love. I think you're going to love the whole album. This is Spanish duo La Blasuela. It's Miguel Hidalgo Sierra and Luis Abril Martín. They're like as Andalucin, Espania, Espania as you can possibly be. And I think what's so striking to me is you hear it and you're like, oh, we got this cool like, exactly like funky bass line, disco vibes, no se que. And then this flamenco vocal. I was going to say the Spanish rasp. The deep Spanish rasp. It's like so specific and unmistakable. You can't listen to this and not be like, oh, wow, that's Espania. That's like. And it's really fascinating as you listen to the whole record, the interplay because it feels like inherently you would think it's so incompatible. This vocal I have never heard over this kind of track, but it works in this really cool way to me. Yeah, I'm fascinated. I'm going to have to dig in because I do think, you know, we always have this sort of like disco funk elements coming back into contemporary pop. Totally. But it's so funny because it is kind of a vintage sound, but then paired with something as sort of like traditional and imposing as a Spanish vocal of that kind as a flamenco male singer's voice. It's just like it's old, it's new, it's fresh. It's just, I love it. Yeah, you're like in the bar and then all do like, ah, ah, ah, ah, like doing the thing, but you're like, why am I listening? Why am I listening to parcels? It's Gypsy Kings meets parcels, which is two combinations of a group of things that I like. I just didn't know I liked them together. Yeah, two very distinct groups of men all blended into one. I'm a fan. I want to play you a little bit of one more track that leans a little more into the flamenco esqueness. This song is called Solo Eres Pañi. Solo Eres Pañi como una lluvia fuerte que recorre mi pie. Estás pegado a muerte como voy a morir. Si sola con mi beso tú te mueres también. Solo Eres Pañi como una lluvia fuerte que recorre mi pie. Estás pegado a muerte como voy a morir. Si sola con mi beso tú te mueres también. Y siento cosas en mi corazón que pueden convivir. Pero quiero decirte amor que no late por ti. Que la letrilla que sobró a ti no la canto con otro varón. Quiera dejarse bebé, debes ser lo meao. Si quieres niña me voy aunque me dejes de hablar. No quites nunca las cosas ya veremos. Si sigues pensando en mí que sepa que yo igual. Sigan cobrando la cosita del corazón. Amargo y dulce nuestro amor. No miran tito por si acaso la razón. Que tiene que escuchar más su dolor. So much happening. So much happening. I'm obsessed. It's so interesting the little R&B moment. The slow tempo. He comes in with the little pop hook. It's so fun. It just goes in new directions. It kind of feels like you're sitting there listening to some of the older Spanish cantantes. I'm not even talking flamenco. I'm actually talking about what he represents with those strings and whatever. You have Angelis Toledano who is an amazing beautiful flamenco voice. Her project is just this gorgeous contemporary flamenco. She so firmly ties it to the flamenco of it. That is clearly at the center. But then you have all of these elements happening around. There's almost something a little electronic there. It exists in ten time periods. But really nice. It's all a little bit gritty. It's all a little bit like this almost doesn't work. But I think it does and that's what makes it really special to me. No, it totally does. It feels very nostalgic but new at the same time. I'm always a big fan of that push and pull. That was a couple of songs from Lugar Número Cero, parentheses D.L.Y. by the duo La Plasuela. Okay Isa, next pick. I gotta do it. I'm taking us back to the Caribbean. Of course. We always, at least once. You know, I'm sorry. I can't help myself. Obviously I'm taking us to Venezuela in particular. This is a song by the trio Mother Flowers. And it's off of their new album Que Vayan y Lo Cuenten. This song, which I really like, is called Tamarindo. They told me that this was a common thing. And I'm going for the alternative. But I can go. I'm taking you to the island. To the beach with the dead. The most beautiful of the sorrows. The flowers have envy. I'd have to be more calm, but the wait was long. The first one came out easier, leaving two and with this one the third. I'm going to travel without fear and cross the border. You can cut all the flowers, but never kill the spring. So yeah, just a little bit of tropical pop. This is almost like... A little bit of R&B, a little bit of hip hop, a little bit of tropical pop. I think the female vocalist Ida Pelusa, she also releases music on her own and she did backing vocals at Rewayana's Tiny Desk. Something about the clarity in her voice, she's so soft spoken, but it just always perks my ears up a little bit. Yeah, this is just a fun song. I love that hip hop element too, because that's something I think don't often get to see in conversation with each other. Like Venezuela that has this incredible rich history and present with hip hop, with rap, all these things. And of course, it's side of having amazing tropical music and a tropical tone music or whatever you want to call it and to hear those things fit really nicely together. It worked really well for me in this song. Yeah, it comes up in a lot of places on the album too. There's one song that's sort of like a 90's salsa and it has Oreste Gomez playing the drums, a capella, does a verse rapping. I think they're very playful, I guess is how I describe mother flowers. To me, that intro to this song is almost a little bit like a jingle to a video game, you know? And then it gets into the really tropical instrumentation. Yeah, they're really dynamic and really sort of lighthearted. To me, it almost feels a little bit like old Bombastere, but just a little bit higher frequency. Well, they're really representative, I think, of to me, the key best parts of what is the Venezuela music scene. I think you see a lot of really rich, lovely collaboration because it's not that big. Everyone spread out, but everyone knows each other and everyone's kind of like, let's do this together. And I think like totally. This specifically is a really nice representation of pooling from all those parts and doing that successfully. And that's my favorite part of the general larger Venezuelan scene too. Yeah, I couldn't agree more. It's like everyone's always on each other's projects and you can hear it and it's familiar, but they always bring something new. It's fun. They keep me on my toes. That was the song, Tamarindo by Mother Flowers, off of their most recent album, Que Vayan y Lo Cuenten. Okay, we're going to take a quick break. Issa, we'll be right back. Don't worry, I have something really fun coming up. I'm seated. This message comes from WISE, the app for international people using money around the globe. You can send, spend, and receive, and up to 40 currencies with only a few simple taps. Be smart. Get WISE. Download the WISE app today or visit wise.com. T's and C's apply. Okay, and we're back. Okay, so this one is kind of like a fun, weird, it's a Chile thing. Everything that comes out of Chile, it's just, it's a Chile thing. I don't know what else to say about it. They have their own world, their own language, and their own very specific culture. So this is a song off of the new album from Macha y el bloque depresivo. The song is called Que es lo que pasa? No puedo comprender que pasa entre los dos si tanto me has querido. Si estás tan junto a mí parece que no estás y buscas el olvido. Si hay otro entre los dos dependeré mi amor como Leon herido. Si en algo te ofendí yo quiero tu perdón. Te mueve mal sentido. Que es lo que pasa? Que nos estamos alejando tanto que cada vez nos cobremos menos. Que cada día que termina es un gran paso amor. Que es lo que pasa? Que nos estamos alejando tanto que cada vez nos cobremos menos. Que cada día que termina es un gran paso amor. Wow. So, okay. Macha y el bloque depresivo is actually a side project, a massive side project of the artist Macha who principally is part of the group Chico Trujillo, which is like this really beloved big cumbia band in Chile. And the way I think of it, Isa, is like Chile is like, you know, the small town in like the Hallmark movie where like the same lady owns like the ice cream shop and the pizza shop and like all the whatever like all the same. That's Macha with music in Chile. Like Macha has like 10 side projects and you could go anywhere in Chile and you're gonna hear a Macha project. You know what I mean? Like in my P, Chico Trujillo, in my P, el bloque depresivo, whatever it is. But Macha's always there. And the fun part is is like it really, I mean, speaking about that kind of like, oh, everyone coming together that group element, like that's what this project is. The album is called Bronceada de Cantina. And the lore, allegedly, supongo que the lore is Macha has this house where he takes everyone to and someone fell asleep on the roof and got like sombre. And he was like, ha, ha, te ves Bronceada de Cantina. And like that was, I mean, they've only ever released this project, this Macha project has only ever released one album. But these are songs they've been playing for years. Oh, fascinating. Like these are songs that have been like, they've been touring. They just kind of didn't bother to do it type of thing. I do want to play one more. They did a cover of Turista, obviously famously the Bad Bunny song. And I think that's the best part. I think that's the best part. I think that's the best part. I think that's the best part. I think that's the best part. I think that's the best part. I think that's the best part. I think that's the best part. I think that's the best part. I think that's the best part. I think that's the best part. I think that's the best part. I think that's the best part. I think that's the best part. I think that's the best part. I think that's the best aspect. I think that's the best aspect. I think that's the best aspect. I think that's the best aspect. I think that's the best aspect. I think that's the best aspect. I think that's the best aspect. Saudage sort of like a Hong-Ging, which I think is also very like part of like the Van-Lunyuan in Argentina, this sort of just steep melancholy that comes out even when it's kind of like we're having drinks and we're having fun, but we're all a little bit like torn on the inside. Well even that cover of Turista, right, is like so... It's so Chilean. Like to me that's the thing, Macha is so Chilean and he has this big Gumbia project, right, which is a certain variety also for like a big Gumbia Chilean project is one interesting thing. And then this is the other where it's like it's him being embodying this fragment of the Chilean psyche, the Chilean discourse, which is like humorously there. That's the thing that they are, right? Like they are very always a little bit like kind of fussed but funny, but depressed, but like in a funny way. And a little bit sulky, a little bit sulky, but like hard at the same time. It's hard to describe the Chilean brand of humor. I'm like, I don't know el mejor país de Chile ya, like I don't know what to tell you. But I say side project and it's like he played that cover of Turista to an audience of 30,000 people at el Estadio Nacional, like that was a few months ago. And so it's just, it's this micro, like this is his pizza shop and Chico Trujillo is his sushi spot. Like he's doing all these versions, which I think is really amazing that he has this endless stream of ideas and types of music he wants to make. And as opposed to just one band that does a thing and you try all these different things, he's like, no, I want to have distinct kind of like holding places and distinct collaborators where I can explore that. And you see across the album too, it's tons of, it's his whole, it's his world that just represented in an album and the people he makes things with. And I just think he's hilarious, honestly. Yeah, yeah, I like that kind of world to building through different projects. And I'm always so fascinated when people have songs or, you know, arrangements of configurations of band members that they perform with live frequently. And then it's like, when does that finally transfer over into being a recorded project? Like, that's so, it's so fun. I'm sure for people who've been seeing this live for a long time to finally have a recording that they can listen to. Right. And also to not, to kind of take away the urgency and the preciousness of it. Like, oh, we just didn't even think to record it. Yeah. That was a couple of songs from the new Machiail blocké de presivo album, Bronceado de Cantina. Isa, this is your last one. I can't believe it went so fast. It just time flies when you're having fun, you know, that's what they say. And I'm always having fun. I'm always having fun with you. So, okay, I'm going to end this on a bit of a moodier note. I'm taking us into la discoteca. We're going to El Andro. This is, yeah, it's my time now. It's dark out. I'm in the middle. That's like my personality. Yeah, exactly. It's the vibe. This is a song by the DJ producer, really like sound architect Rosa Pistola. It is the single Conejo y Luna, off of her forthcoming album, Incorrecible. So, my understanding is that opening poem and some of the chanting throughout this track is in the indigenous language of Nahuatl. And she's just really doing this interesting thing of marrying sort of the ancestral with the modern, you know, with the contemporary, with electronic, with this EDM sort of trance thing, and really trying to create this sort of connection across time. It almost reminds me of like that one scene in Sinners, you know, where it's you're really trying to stretch the boundaries of sort of, yeah, like going all the way back to the indigenous Aztec traditions into the modern day Andro dance floor and really trying to marry the two and create sort of a spiritual connection through movement and through dance. I haven't seen Rosa Pistola sets live, but I've heard amazing things about her. I believe she's based in Mexico City. This is one of those things that I think I've seen like, some of the most interesting projects to me right now are those that are taking indigenous sound, language, whatever it might be, and incorporating that with the electronic. There's something really cutting about that. And like, it's like undeniably contemporary. It's undeniably present. It's like not something, you know, if you try to go with a more traditional instrumentation or meld it with a even just like a sound that is not as popular, not as much in the present, it's kind of easy to ignore or easier to not dive into. But when you put it so directly in people's faces like, no, you're going to love this, you're going to listen to it, you're going to dance to it. And this is me presenting something that I want you to experience. There's something really gripping to me about that. And I love what you just played. I'm going to go listen to the whole thing. Yeah. And it's interesting too, because she's someone who's dabbled in all sorts of club music. I mean, she did a boiler room set with DJ Playairo of like, you know, reggaeton pioneer fame. So yeah, DJ Playairo being one of the founding DJs of no big deal. Only one of the people who created, you know, that little genre known as reggaeton that some of you might know. That little genre that reggaeton, whatever. You know, she's worked in these more sort of traditional reggaeton demo genres. She's obviously, you know, she's from Mexico and builds on a lot of Mexican cumbias and Mexican rhythms. But yeah, I think there's something so overt about the way that she's sort of incorporating the language and the chanting into this particular track. I'm really excited to see how it plays out on this new project, because it just feels very intentional and spiritual and like deeply personal for her, I'm sure, but also kind of like transcendental, thinking about being at the club surrounded by people experiencing this. Like, I don't know, I was very moved by it when I first heard it, and I'm very excited to hear the full album. So that was the song Conejo y Luna by Rosa Pistola off of her forthcoming album, Incorregible. Okay. I'm also taking us a little sad, but very different sad direction because I'm going to northern Mexico because I love these guys up there doing their cute little indie thing. It's amazing. This in particular is the new album from the artist Niño Viejo. This track is called Todas Las Vezas. There's so emotional. There's something, you know, there's this cohort of like the Ed Maverick, Kevin Carle, Niño Viejo is part of that crew, specifically he's making music with Ed. That was Ed on that song. On his label, Oyes un Buendía. I was like, this sounds familiar. Literally, Oyes un Buendía in Chihuahua. There's something I think that makes it especially magnetic because what we know to be true about Norteño Men is to be completely separate from the emotion, the emotional. This is like just notoriously what it is. That is culturally how most of them are raised. And so for these boys to be making these music that's so deeply sentimental and soft and lovey and broken and la la la la la. Yeah, they're the sweet sad boys. There's a magnetism to it. I think for a lot of people, Niño Viejo specifically, he's from Mexicali. His name is Baruch Argil, which if you've ever been to Mexicali, he's like like it's just desert and Chinese food and shopping malls. And here's this boy making this beautiful, beautiful, sad, lovey music. So the whole record is really cute. It's called And you know, he does like a bolero on some tracks, but it always has this kind of like lo-fi and the kind of cute little guitar thing too. And if you want to know what I'm walking around listening to in primavera, like it's this dude. So. Well, knowing you, that doesn't surprise me. And I say that in the best way possible. It's just like a little bit in your feels, but not too in your face. You know, I love that combination. Exactly. That was Isa, we did it. We did it. I have so much new music to go home and listen to. Thank you. I know. Me too. I'm like, wow, so much to walk around and smell the flowers list. So many walk playlist to put together. Thank you so much. Exactly. Thank you so much for coming. You should come back like next week. I haven't checked with my co-conspirator, but I think it's fine. I mean, don't threaten me with a good time. I will pull up. So, Aquinoz no. You have been listening to Alt Latino. Our audio producer is Noah Caldwell. The executive producer of NPR Music is Saram Mohamed. The executive director of NPR Music is Sonali Menta. And if you enjoyed this episode, we always appreciate a positive review or any review on Apple or Spotify or whatever app you're listening to right now. And we always love hearing directly from you. Send us an email at altlatino at npr.org. Tell us what's on your mind. It can be anything. I'm Ana Maria Ser. And I'm Isabel Aguamizar Miento. Thank you so much for listening. Yay!
