Cancionera

To call Natalia Lafourcades Cancionera ("Songstress") a change of direction would be an erroneous understatement. Her first studio album since 2022s De Todas Las Flores, it was co-produced by Adan Jodorowsky with 18 musicians (chamber strings, winds, reeds, and brass) and several invited guests. It was recorded live in one take to analog tape. Lafourcade seeks to combine the traditional and the contemporary in dialogue that weds her roots in the Veracruz son jarocho heritage with her modern creative sensibilities on originals and a few interpretations of Mexican folk songs. Opener "Cancion Apertura" is a case in point. Surrounded by sweeping orchestral strings conducted by Gordon Hamilton, her sultry voice emerges from ether buoyed by her gorgeous piano and nylon-string guitar playing. New York Citys Soundwalk Collective offers sound design for her arrangements. "Cancionera" is at once a nocturnal plea and anthem. Accompanied by sensual strings, her guitar, Emiliano Dorantes piano, and Abraham J. Saenz flute, she sings a hymn to her alter ego, "Songbook, sing, sing free to the wind/Cancionera, always sing your truth/Be a woman, the beautiful muse; be the star of a life ... Lighting a heart /Dont mortify yourself if the lights/go out on you/Or the delights of fame/They will betray our love." The sets finest moment -- albeit arguably -- is "Amor Clandestino," a steamy midtempo bolero in a duo with the world-class flamenco tenor Israel Fernandez. The entwined singers voices ache with desire and amorous need backed only by percussion, piano, and contrabass. The foreboding ballad "Mascaritas de Cristal" is all romance and ache as cello and contrabass play off one another amid her resonant vocals and guitar. The cheery, sprightly, "El Paloma y La Negra" finds a large backing chorus, clarinet, trumpet, and strings framing her vocal and tender lyrics. Her version of the mysterious folk song "La Bruja" offers only Lafourcades nylon-string guitar and Soundwalk Collectives sonic design, which never feels inorganic. Its followed by "Luna Creciente" with the spacious desert guitars of Los Hermanos Gutierrez offering an exotic, sumptuous backdrop for her romantic vocal. "Lagrimas Cancioneras" is a glorious orchestral instrumental offering in sound design by Soundwalk Collective using lush strings, melancholy flute, piano, winds, and brass. The album closes with a mournful flamenco version of "Amor Clandestino (Acustica)" and a poignant acoustic version of the title track. Cancionera is at once seductive and striking; its sophisticated lyrics wed searing poetry and metaphysics by blending folk forms into modernist songs of sensual and spiritual power. It doesnt get much better than this. ~ Thom Jurek