Mestizx

MESTIZX is the debut long-player from the Amsterdam-based married duo of Ibelisse Guardia Ferragutti and Frank Rosaly. Its title redefines and reappropriates the terms "mestizo" and "mestiza," denoting a mixed-race person. Bolivian-born Ferragutti is a classically trained pianist, singer, composer, performer, and visual artist with Brazilian family roots. Drummer/composer/bandleader/producer Rosaly is a veteran jazzman from Puerto Rico who was raised in Arizona. MESTIZX is a complex, sometimes provocative journey through cultural memory, musicological invention, and personal narrative. Its kaleidoscopic meld of genres crisscrosses Latin, Afro-Latin, and Caribbean styles and polyrhythms with jazz, folk, psychedelic samba, vanguard improvisation, and post-punk. Simultaneously a work of resistance that celebrates liberation struggles across the history of Indigenous peoples, it offers a new paradigm of cultural and artistic discourse that joins visionary music with boundaryless imagination and creativity. The album was co-produced by the duo along with Matt Lux and Dave Vettraino. The pair perform most instruments and voices, but they get assistance from friends including pianist/keyboardist Chris Doyle, trumpeter Ben Lamar Gay, guitarist Bill MacKay, and percussionist Mikel Patrick Avery, among others. Lyrics are in English, Portuguese, and Spanish (with translations in the booklet). "Invocacao" commences with mbira and brushed cymbals. Rosalys synth flows in from the margin as Ferragutti begins singing about grandmothers with laconic grace. A waltz-playing piano frames the center before electronic drums, a kit, synth, and Ferraguttis chanted vocals join in, dislocating the music, not the message. The single "Destejer" blends Andean folk, jazz, futurist cumbia, and pulsing organ over clashing rhythms as Ferragutti sweetly sings: "Mending my words/I embrace the knowledge of my body/to unweave the homogeneity…. The present conjures the past/that informs the future/I dodge the trap/I am not raw material, roots…." Its followed by postindustrial drums, loops, synths, and chanting voices in the clattering, shambolic "Balada Para la Corporatocracia." The all-too-brief "Turbulencia" joins rumbling Afro-Cuban drumming to Latin rock a la Abraxas-era Santana and Afrobeat. Its beat is infectious and Ferraguttis words are searing with righteous indignation. The title ballad layers synths, multi-tracked voices, piano, and shakers in a manifesto of liberation and reclaimed identity amid interlocking marimba, mbira, percussion, piano, and synth; their spellbinding juxtaposition of simple melody and complex rhythms is arresting. "Descend" offers the poetry of resistance underscored by clashing drum kits, hand drums, cowbell, and electronica, with Ferragutti speaking: What parliament of voices/Do we need to sit with…?/In order to practice/our dying?" in an indictment of colonial mindsets. "Writing with Knots" evolves from eerie, primitive cumbia to post-rock to free jazz; its a dazzling virtuosic display. Closer "Sirinus" is an homage to dreams, reinvention, and wisdom with Rosalys metronymic krar (bowl-shaped lyre), shakers, harmonica, synth bass, and a boatload of electronics. MESTIZX is unlike any other album. It is where the historic cultural past meets present-day conflict and jingoism. Undaunted, this duo chart a direction and unfettered hope for the future, holism, and acceptance. ~ Thom Jurek