¡Ay! album cover
¡Ay!

Lucrecia Dalt

2022
RVNG Intl.

Dalt’s work over multiple albums and soundtracks has always had the influence of her native Colombia, but it’s been incorporated as an essence within complex abstractions. Here, though, on her second album for RVNG Intl., the bolero, mambo, salsa, and merengue are vividly present – albeit slowed down, stretched and dubbed out, turned otherworldly. Oddly, in doing this she has happened on the same very late night fantastical interzone as the slower end of Tom Waits’s junkyard percussion records.

Joe Muggs

A summer squash encrusted with rubies, spinning at the end of a filament. This music evokes romance, disaster, cartoons, and the folded emotional avalanches of noir. I hear Latin Playboys, Tom Waits, PJ Harvey, The X-Files, and Tom Ze. Or maybe the best parallel is Björk, in terms of someone who simply gathers the instruments she needs for the task at hand. Dalt is a compelling singer and a fully clear-eyed envisioner of worlds. Imagine a Tim Burton filtering of Spanish language art songs. I like it when it folds in on itself and squelches and the trumpets and clarinets drunkenly stumble into this Weimar elevator. Hey!

Sasha Frere-Jones

Recommended by
Who also suggested

If you select your preferred streamer here, we will save your preference and link to that platform if possible. This can always be changed in the Settings menu.

Apple Music

If you’d like to prioritize Bandcamp if available, tap the Bandcamp logo.

Since some albums are only available on one service, you’ll still see logos for other services if the album is only available on that service.

Next