Alt.Latino's 'Music We Missed In 2024'
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This message comes from Sony Pictures Classics with The Room Next Door, the new film by Pedro Almodovar starring Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton. After years go by, two friends meet again in an extreme but sweet situation in Select Theatre's December 20th. Okay, so I used to play in this band. The singer left, and then somebody was singing in the meantime, but he couldn't really sing. So then we get to a gig...

And it was like, you tell him. No, you tell him. You tell him. No, you tell him. So then we said, bro, you can't sing today. He says, why? Why? What happened? Somebody forget the microphones? And it was my job to tell him. I said, no, bro, you can't sing. You can't sing. You're a bad singer. He said, I know that, man, but nobody else was stepping up. So then that's the story of how you became the next Celine Dion Felix. Yeah.

From NPR Music, this is Alt Latino. I'm Felix Contreras. And I'm Ana Maria Sayer. Let the chisme begin. We go through a lot of music over the year, right? True. Every year. We do. Some things we do miss. More than some things, I would say. Yeah. We try. Because there's just too much. Honestly, as I say every year, there's just so much amazingly creative stuff that sometimes...

We have to take a little bit of time at the end of the year to go back on a couple of things that really stood out to us over the year, but we didn't get to. A lot of our colleagues have to parse through X amount of music within this country. I feel as though the task we have to parse through the amount of music that we do from literally two continents...

It's a little bit more work. I don't know. I'll just say that. Whatever. It's a double blessing. It's a double blessing. More beautiful things to hear, but also more beautiful things that fall through the cracks. Plus the Iberian Peninsula. Plus the Iberian Peninsula. How could I possibly forget? All that to say, I went super Mexican this episode. I'm sorry. I'm like, all the things I missed from all over Latin America, and here I am with three Mexican artists. Sorry, but there's a lot of good stuff in Mexico I missed, okay?

So first and foremost, I have Sanji. I brought this artist, Felix, never on our show, but I did bring Sanji on our segment on Here and Now, the new show, last week. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful producer who has now released his debut album this year. The album is called De Repente Otra Vez. This track is called Buen Fantasma. ♪

This music reminds me of some of the bands coming from Mexico in the 90s in the early 2000s that were

You know, there's so much rich musical culture to draw from in Mexico, but then when you strike your own path and draw from those cultures but then create your own sound, because there's this one here, it's a little bit of rock, there's a little bit of all kinds of stuff that influences contemporary culture in Mexico, which people forget.

Very rocky just sounds that you don't hear a lot in the contemporary pop space, especially what's coming out of Mexico I think what I hear a lot in Mexico right now in the pop space is more like synthetic sounds we're playing a lot with like the pop sounds of the US and bringing them to Mexico as is often the case but

Sanji really is saying, no, I'm good on that. My project is going to be heavy live instrumentation and it's going to be something that you're not quite hearing otherwise in this space. You think he's going for the pop space or is he just making creative music and then letting everybody else catch up to him? You're right. You're right. And I think I always get a little nervous when producers try to do their own project because...

I'm always worried. I'm like, you're a great producer. You clearly have amazing creative insight. And also maybe this is going to be a little too inside baseball for the average listener. And so I think I was pleasantly surprised that this is a little bit poppier, a little bit more accessible, a little bit more consumable than I would have expected for a producer's project. It's an attitude. It's an attitude. It's a consumability. It's a popularity, quite literally. Yeah.

For me, pop refers to intentionality. I want this to be popular. I want a lot of people to listen to it as opposed to, I'm going to make music and whoever comes to it is cool. I was reflecting on that yesterday with the release of our Billie Eilish Tiny Desk.

Because I was thinking about how I think she's as widely popular in a way because she's kind of got something for everyone in the sense that people who like pop love her because she is a pop artist and she's popular. But people who are really like music, musicians, alternative people, they find something in her music because it's a little bit off center in a way that you wouldn't expect a traditional pop artist to sound like.

I'll take your word for it. Okay, just leave Billie Eilish out of it for now. I'm not going there. We're nonjudgmental here, Felix. This track you brought in, Sanji, it was called? Buen Fantasma. And the album's called? De Arrepento Otra Vez. Okay, what I'm going to bring next is something that came out later in the year. The artist is named David Lindes.

He is probably Alt Latino's very first listener ever. He's been listening to the podcast and communicating with us, first Jasmine and I, and then me over the years, from the very beginning, I think from the first episode. Wow. Right? Okay. Because he was living in Salt Lake City, and he heard what we were doing with Latin music, and he found a place for himself in that. And then later on, I found out that he's actually a very, very talented recording artist, a songwriter, singer-songwriter.

He's put out a couple of records, but his new record came out within the last month or so. And it's something he's been working on for a long time because we've been communicating through Facebook and stuff like that, right? He has gone through this very, very...

traumatic experience of leaving Guatemala as a child, being abandoned by his father as a baby, and then experiencing physical and emotional abuse as an adult. So this record is sort of a healing project. And he's using Guatemala as much the same way that people are using Danny Ocean's references to his love affairs or his objects of love as a substitute for Venezuela.

So this is what's happening with David Lindes' music. Guatemala is the object of his affection, and he's writing about that. This particular song is called Te Vengo a Perdonar, and it's about a confrontation with his father. So I'm going to play the first single that came out. It's called Te Vengo a Perdonar, and this is David Lindes, and the album's going to be called Peace with a Lion. Te vengo a perdonar

is

I need to add that this record was produced by Alex Cuba. Right? That's relevant. Right. Yeah. Alex Cuba is an amazing artist in and of himself, so to see something special in David Linders is even more special, I think.

There's a deep emotionality for sure to not even what he's saying, but just like the texture of the music here. Like the way it's kind of this very... It feels almost reflective. It feels pensive in this way that...

I think it's distinct from a lot of the albums I've been drawn to this year that have been about transformation and processing and rebirth and all of these things. They've been a lot more intense, a lot more like, you know, I think immediately of Angelica Garcia's album, right? Like I was describing that this morning. I was like her experience of rebirth in that album. It's, it's intense. It's there's moments where she's screaming guttural. It's very, very like almost abrasive. And this is the opposite of that to me while he's processing, while he's,

moving through these things while he's considering these really difficult themes, he's doing it in this very slow and thoughtful and pensive and evocative way that I think is also really beautiful to hear. It's consistent with the rest of his music. He is a pensive, sensitive songwriter like that. And this stuff really leans in on that. Like he establishes who he is and then in order to be able to concentrate on this particular subject.

What I really like about it, though, is that he's offering his own healing out to the world and all the healing that we need to be doing right now. I'm going to be happy

The album is called Peace With The Lion. It'll be out early next year. The track is called Te Vengo A Perdonar. And the artist is David Lindis.

Okay. All right. This one's really funny, Felix. Okay. So before you start, though, we have, again, one of those things where we didn't talk ahead of time. We were so connected on all of our picks this week. They melded together perfectly.

Except for this one. No, truly, because every other track I brought is so right in line with everything. Because I think deep down in our core, Felix, we really do gravitate towards the exact same sounds. Different, wearing different clothes, perhaps, but the same sounds. This one is a whole other different thing. So these guys, this guy specifically, his name is Young Dupe. He's a rapper from Mexico City. Oops, sorry. Whatever. It just happened. Oh!

And he's produced by this German producer named Kimo on this record. I cannot for the life of me figure out what Pugs Pugs Pugs is, okay? That's listed as the third artist on the track. I don't know who that is. I don't know if it's a real person. This artist has no songs on Spotify. I don't know. Anyways, they released this record, Políticamente Correcto, and this is the title track from that record, Políticamente Correcto.

♪♪ ♪♪

Look, I mean, I'll answer you well even if the question has a trick to it.

And even if I never fail you, you know that I'm only yours And even if time always comes, it doesn't matter that I'm raw And even so, after all, I swear for sure that if that's why I bore you, can you get the juice out of another? They are perfect They are perfect Super boyfriends

Okay, listening to this one up close and personal like this, you know, it's not really that different, actually. Okay, love to hear what this is about. No, because there's just a bass.

there's a drummer and somebody doing hand claps and there are no keyboards. There's nothing. It's so sparse.

It's their letting the language be the propulsion of this thing. Yes. So it's very much like, as you'll hear in the rest of the show, the instrumentation is very sparse, very light. This actually fits in now that I think about it. See, I somehow subliminally knew. The way they play with their own cadence is very much the star of this song. It's not of the whole track, but...

Generally speaking, these guys have a groove to them. They have a swing to them almost that I really am just drawn to. It doesn't feel like they're going for anything. They're not trying to prove anything. They're just kind of...

playing around in a way that feels really refreshing. It's kind of got like this funky rhythm to it. And a lot of the songs, the other songs, you know, some of them hit harder on the rap side. Some of them almost have a little bit of that, like very classic Mexican string sprinkling to it that I love to hear always on any songs coming out of Mexico. But listen to the lyrics of the song and you're like, is this a commentary on machisto? Is it them being machisto? Like I can't even totally tell, but

But it's fun and it works and it moves. And I just loved this whole album. It was really fresh to me. It's retro. That's a James Brown bass line right there. Totally. Yeah, that thing, it stood out. Now that I listen to it on headphones and with a little bit more attention, it really stood out. It fits in. I really, I'm excited for you to hear the rest of this one. I will actually like to forcibly make you listen to this one. I probably won't.

What I'm going to do is I'm going to make you give me a ride somewhere and then I'm going to put it on in the car and you're going to have to hear it. All right. So because I thought it was stylistically too different, in order to segue back into the stylistic side,

Segway we had. I have you go in the next song. Oh, wow. Okay. And we'll be right back. This message comes from Peloton. Offering a variety of classes to fit every season of your life with instructors to motivate you with playlists, Spanish language classes, and personalities that match any mood you're in. Whether you need 10, 20, or 45 minutes of you time to sweat or get grounded, Peloton

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Support for this podcast and the following message come from Energia, where everyone can invest in the world's top renewable energy markets and make an impact. With Energia, you can invest directly in solar projects that reduce carbon emissions. More at Energia.com slash NPR. And we're back. And I listened to the whole record. What did you think, Felix? It was good. It was good. It was everything you said it was. Okay.

Give me one specific thing that you really liked about one specific song that I didn't bring in. You know, I'll have to get back to you on that. Okay. You're up next. Okay. This one I think you'll like, Felix. Hopefully. Maybe. This artist, also Mexican, his name is Benjamin Walker. And this track is called Libre off the album Libre. Lots of title tracks today. Okay.

Dormirme con la puerta abierta y ser lo que quiero ser Ya no me quedo en silencio Ya no tengo miedo de mirar Tengo un corazón más cerca de estar Ya no me quedo en silencio Ya no tengo miedo de mirar Tengo un corazón más cerca de estar Tan cerca de estar

You see how that's similar to the track we played? I actually do really see how that's similar. There's actually like a real alignment there. Just a sparse instrumentation. I saw that Benjamin Walker had a large listening base in Chile and I was really surprised that what I found was that, what I read was that he was a Mexico City artist because I was like, it's quite unusual. Usually I can tell where an artist is from,

Because the majority of their listening base is usually from that place. Surprisingly, Benjamin Walker is actually from Mexico City and he's randomly found this Chilean audience, which is weird because the trend for this year has been

domestic listening. His listener base is still very much Chilean because the heart of his folky singer-songwriter-y sound is still very much based in a Chilean experience. I think that's really quite beautiful. Well, then when you also consider that he's probably pulling on the tradition of one of the most popular songs

folk musicians in all of Latin America, Victor Jara. Totally. From Chile. Absolutely. Beautiful, Victor Jara. There's a strong tradition there, so he's pulling on that.

I'm assuming. Well, I mean, the record is libre. So absolutely, very Victor Jara. And también, I mean, there is something really unique about, you know, I talked about the uniqueness of how he strings together a melody and how we said it's very vocally driven. He plays with the melody really nicely. It's not a straight ahead, you know, fun, just, oh, singer-songwriter melody. He really does something a little bit unique here.

Again, the name of the track is Libre and it's from the album Libre. That came out in January of this year. Wow.

How did I miss it? I don't know. I'm a fan. I really like what he's doing, and I really like the sparse instrumentation. And the voice sort of sounds to me almost like El Lado Negro. El Lado Negro. In a way, right? There's like a calming quality to his voice is what I immediately thought. No, it stands out, man. Good call. Okay, Benjamin Walker, you got a new fan over here. Okay?

I brought in a track. The next one is, do you know that artist Laza de Sela? Yes. Okay. So for the folks who don't know Laza de Sela, just very, very quickly, she was born in the U.S. She has a Mexican-American mom. They had a bohemian lifestyle. She was born in 1972. They traveled all across the U.S. and Mexico in a bus, in a school bus.

She and her sisters were homeschooled by their mom. They lived in Mexico for eight years, so she's fluent in Spanish. They moved to Canada, and that's where she started her career. She moved to France as an adult. And then, unfortunately, we lost her to breast cancer in 2010. It was very, very sad, very traumatic. And in the meantime, she assembled this almost like a cult status. People who like Lázaro Sela really like her and are really into her stuff. She grew up

And pivotal years growing up in Mexico with rancheras, U.S. folk, Nuevo Canto. So that's her thing. She has this distinct voice. An album was released in her name earlier this year. It's called First Recordings, and it's stuff that was done before her very, very first record of La Llorona.

And it was recorded with a guitar player with a French name, and I hope I don't butcher it. Yves Desrosiers. Okay, sorry if I butchered your name, pal. That was pretty good. Okay. It's a very insightful look into everything that she built on after this. This is called El Cosachero from the album First Recordings from La Sadecela. La tierra de Chaco que rachera y mantaras Vendera mi sangre como un ronco zapugay

♪

I've always heard Chavela Vargas in her singing. Oh, a hundred percent. Right? Yes. There is so much richness to those vocals. I mean, it's like,

There's few these days who have that level of depth. She had a particular talent. Now that you've been introduced to her, go look for her catalog out there because every record that she put out was just, it got better and better and better. And she left behind this great legacy and so many fans. Laza de Sela is her name. The record is called First Recordings, and that was called El Cosechero.

Okay, because you got two in a row. You also now get to have two in a row. So Dom La Nena, do you know that artist? Yes. Yes, we played her on the show. She is Brazilian. She is a cellist. She is a singer-songwriter. There was a French movie put out this year called La Vie de Me Mare.

It's a pretty much all-instrumental record, and it's something that I heard earlier in the year, and I ended up putting it on my personal favorites that we're going to publish on NPR. But this record, we never got a chance to play it, but I've been listening to it a lot this year. It's a nice clear out, mellow out, get centered, right? This is Dom La Nena. This is a track called Pierre et les Fleurs. ♪

This is a nice track to wind out the year that was in music, right?

Wrong. No, yes, I agree. This is radio. You're supposed to talk. That just nods your head, man. It's because you got me too zen, Felix. This morning, Felix proclaimed me Buddhist, actually. That's quite literally what happened.

I'm feeling quite zen and that fit really nicely with my current emotional state. We're going to have to wait until 2025 to explain what happened for that. Because this will be our last show of the year. We're going to be gone for a while. While we go out and do our respective holiday stuff.

This track is a really good way to bring all of this amazing music on the show, on the tiny desk, everything. It's always a thrill. It's always really a gift, a blessing to be able to present all that to people listening out there. So, yeah.

end of the year. Thank you all very much for listening. Thank you for supporting the show. Thank you for watching the Tiny Desk Concerts. Thank you for laughing at Anna making fun of me all year long. Putting me down. Laughing at Anna making fun of you. Laughing at Anna period. Remember when my crutches got run over? I didn't even tell anyone about how I broke my ass yesterday. We didn't even get to that story. You did in yoga.

You have been listening to Alt Latino, not just this week, but all year long. Of course, you listen to every single episode. We are the editor, the audio. Oh, my God. We are the editor. Our editor, our sound editor is Simon Retner with editorial help from Hazel Sills. The woman who keeps us on track is Grace Chung. She tries so hard. So hard. She does her best. She fails, not because of her, because of us. Because of us.

So, Raya Muhammad is sitting right here, man. Where would we be without her? She is executive producer of NPR Music and our pal and our wrangler. Also, we need money. And Keith Jenkins is the VP of Music and Visuals here at NPR. I'm Felix Contreras. And I'm Ana Maria Sayer. Thank you for listening. Thank you for listening. Thank you for listening.

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