The northern winds that sweep Argentina’s Andean Altipiano usher you into Soema Montenegro’s magical world, her voice reflecting the fluctuating breeze. It’s a deceptively gentle start to an album that swells and soars with the strength of Montenegro’s voice, which she channels into healing chants that echo the traditions of the ancestral communities whose cultures she has long studied. Listening to Circulo Radiante feels like delving into a Gabriel García Márquez novel, where the real and the magical are inexorably entwined as Montenegro and producer Leo Martinelli (aka Tremor) take you on journey through the rhythms of Latin America. The album is an ode to nature and a reflection of humans’ fractured relationship with it: on second track “Caminante” Montenegro condemns the multinational mines that are destroying Argentina’s landscapes and communities, her rage boiling over into an explosion of percussion and a cry of pain. Overall though this is a joyous album, from the jubilant carnival of “San Pedro” to the feverish cumbia of “Punay,” and a love letter to Latina America, its land and indigenous cultures.