Lido Pimienta: La Belleza review – Gregorian chant meets dembow rhythm in a work of remarkable depth
Five years since her Grammy-nominated breakthrough record Miss Colombia, singer and producer Lido Pimienta has taken a radical shift in direction. On Miss Colombia, Pimienta combined sprightly electro pop with cumbia rhythms and soaring vocals to critique racism and misogyny – now, her fourth album La Belleza (The Beauty) is a nine-track orchestral suite touching on everything from Gregorian chant to strings-laden love songs and dembow rhythms.
Inspired by Catholic requiem mass music and the luscious harpsichord folk of Czech composer Luboš Fiser's score to 1970 film Valerie and Her Week of Wonders, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett began writing and arranging for the 60-piece Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra during the Covid lockdowns. The result is a moving work of remarkable depth.
There is drama aplenty. Pimienta harnesses the trilling tension of the Philharmonic's strings section on the militaristic tone of Ahora, intended as a battle cry for her Indigenous Wayuu roots. Aún Te Quiero employs thrumming counterpoint phrasing in the horn section as Pimienta sings a lament for her past self, and El Dembow del Tiempo ingeniously layers a percussive dembow rhythm over baroque flutes, producing a strangely propulsive new sound.
While the instrumentals are deftly arranged and often surprising, it's Pimienta's agile, flawless vocals that steal the show: effortlessly doubling the yearning trumpet melodies of requiem mass music on Overturn, performing a sweet, soaring falsetto at the end of Ahora, powerfully leaping through glissandos on the harp-plucking of Mango and layering poignant, full-throated harmonies on closer Busca La Luz. Ascending from whispered intimacy to bellowing force as she yearns for affection on Quiero Que Me Beses (I Want You to Kiss Me), her maturing voice is as captivating as the might of any orchestra.
Egyptian producer Elkotsh's debut album Rhlt Jdi (Nyege Nyege Tapes) combines doom-laden synth bass with celebratory mahraganat rhythms to produce a thunderous new blend. The hammering techno kick drums and siren-like melodies of Mwlid Ala'sar are an infectious highlight. A new compilation of unreleased music from Cameroonian musicologist Francis Bebey, Trésor Magnétique (Africa Seven), is an Afrofuturist treasure trove, blending everything from drum machines with mbira melody to breathy pygmy flutes with synth buzz, confounding genre definitions from the 1970s onwards. Singer Manika Kaur's latest album Devocean (Six Degrees) is a soothing collection of spiritual music from Arabic, Sikh, Celtic and Indigenous traditions. At times in danger of straying towards wafting New Age ambience, tracks like Māori song Wakan Tanka manage to find poignancy in the blend of Kaur's gossamer voice with the earthy didgeridoo.
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