(2019) Y La Bamba - Mujeres
Review:
In the 11 years that Luz Elena Mendoza has been making music as Y La Bamba, there have been a few constants. Spirituality, identity, and the blessings and burdens of familial legacy have always shaped her songs. And there are the breathtaking harmonies, which color the upper reaches of her music like starlings in the sky. But otherwise, Y La Bamba — sometimes a solo project, sometimes a group with shifting membership — has entailed a gradual process of reinvention. That evolution has taken her from the twee folk of her self-recorded 2008 debut, Alida St., through a trio of albums where stylistically omnivorous indie rock meets the music she absorbed from her parents, immigrants to the United States from Michoacan, Mexico.
Mujeres, Mendoza’s first album in three years, represents her most radical shift yet. Y La Bamba sound almost like a different band here, and Mendoza’s voice embodies a newfound confidence, embracing unexpected risks. Previous albums trailed in the shadows of her predecessors: Alida St. bore fingerprints of the era that birthed Joanna Newsom and CocoRosie, while 2016’s Ojos del Sol echoed the roots-conscious approach of artists like Angel Olsen. But it’s hard to think of anyone making music that sounds quite like this. In 14 songs, Mujeres traverses fulsome dream pop, jubilant indie dance, skeletal folk, and whispered spoken-word poetry.
This is Mendoza’s first self-produced Y La Bamba album, and the band’s personality has never shone through more clearly than it does here. Electric guitars played by Ryan Oxford and Deerhoof’s Ed Rodriguez flash a twangy tone reminiscent of 1950s Chicano rock, but they’re just as likely to take on the phased, flanged timbre of 1980s post-punk. Grace Bugbee’s agile electric bass destabilizes the music in fascinating ways, and drummer John Niekrasz responds with playful, muscular rhythms. Field recordings—songbirds, freight trains, church bells, and, most powerfully, a funeral mass for a cousin—provide a tangible sense of place.
Opener “My Death” feels like a way of wiping the slate clean. “Haven’t been feeling strong/It’s hard to explain,” Mendoza sings, her voice buoyed by wordless background vocals. There’s a viscous feeling to all those layered voices, woozy and psychedelic, that makes her own singing stand out. Where Mendoza once tended to sing from the back of her throat, as if swallowing her vowels, she steps forward here. On “Cuatro Crazy” and “Lightning Storms,” she even evokes the way that Cocteau Twins’ Elizabeth Fraser could swoop and dart, almost avian in her pursuit of the melodic line.
Mendoza’s family and upbringing have always permeated her music—2010’s Lupon was named for her father, with whom she had a difficult relationship. Those themes come into sharper focus on Mujeres. The album reckons with the misogyny that she and other women in her family have experienced. The largely acoustic “Una Letra” derives solace and wisdom from her mother’s love, while “Mujeres” is a feminist anthem of empowerment and resistance. Made almost entirely with thrumming toms and contrapuntal chanting, the highlight feels a little like an unplugged response to Animal Collective’s “My Girls.” The album also attempts to grapple with the reality of being Latinx in contemporary America, a place where speaking Spanish is deemed probable cause for questioning by Customs and Border Patrol agents.
At its core, though, Mujeres is about empathy, love, and understanding—for one’s ancestors, one’s allies, and oneself. “Aren’t you listening?” she sings during the hushed “Real Talk.” “You’re probably hurting in almost the same way.” Then she flips that idea on its head: “Because you feel me/Doesn’t mean we relate/I know it’s hard to/Realize we are not the same.” It’s a provocative formulation, one that goes to the heart of her unusual approach.
Mendoza has often stressed the importance of the music’s expressive dimension, describing it in terms of catharsis and healing. “It’s less about the sounds and the style for me,” she told Westword last year. “I know that some people are going to be like, ‘Oh, this is such an interesting direction,’ when really the question is, ‘Hey, how are you? How’s your spirit?’” But that sells the music short: Its formal inventiveness reflects her resilient spirit, letting it permeate every bit of this striking, vibrant record.
Tracklist:
01 - My Death.flac
02 - Real Talk.flac
03 - Cuatro Crazy.flac
04 - Conocidos.flac
05 - Lightning Storms.flac
06 - Dieciséis.flac
07 - Boca Ilena.flac
08 - Perder.flac
09 - Mujeres.flac
10 - Una Letra.flac
11 - Santa Sal.flac
12 - Bruja de Brujas.flac
13 - Follow Your Feet.flac
14 - De Lejos.flac
Summary:
Country: USA
Genre: dream-pop, indie-folk
Media Report:
Source : CD
Format : FLAC
Format/Info : Free Lossless Audio Codec, 16-bit PCM
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : ~ 750-930 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Sampling rate : 44.1 KHz
Bit depth : 16 bits
