Released

After forming a for-real alt-rock band, Natalia y la Forquetina, for one album, and releasing an instrumental EP, Las 4 Estaciones del Amor, Natalia Lafourcade returned to her art-pop sound on Hu Hu Hu, co-produced by Emmanuel del Real of Café Tacuba. The songs feel suffused with light; her voice, which has become richer and less breathy than it was on her 2003 debut, and she’s surrounded by a wide range of instruments, including keyboards, horns, xylophones, and accordion, almost all of which she played herself. Toward the end of the album, a large orchestra (strings, horns, glockenspiel) shows up on “Azul,” “Hora de Compartir,” “Un Lugar Para Renacer” and “Look Outside,” turning the music from an intimate and thoughtful journey into a celebratory outburst. (The latter is one of three songs — the others are “Let’s Get Out” and “Running Too Fast” — that Lafourcade sings in English, something she’s never done on any subsequent record.) Julieta Venegas guests on the title track; Lafourcade had led the band on Venegas’s 2009 MTV Unplugged recording.

Phil Freeman

Suggestions
Jessico cover

Jessico

Babasónicos
Bailar Y Llorar cover

Bailar Y Llorar

Teleradio Donoso
Bestia cover

Bestia

Hello Seahorse!
Hurricane cover

Hurricane

Grace Jones
Casa cover

Casa

Natalia y La Forquetina
Escuela De Zebras cover

Escuela De Zebras

Joe Crepúsculo
Silence Is Sexy cover

Silence Is Sexy

Einstürzende Neubauten
Lust for Life cover

Lust for Life

Lana Del Rey
Pedropiedra cover

Pedropiedra

Pedropiedra