SOUNDTRACK: Y LA BAMBA-Tiny Desk Concert #893 (September 20, 2019).
It used to be that no one was invited back to play a Tiny Desk Concert. The rules have been relaxed somewhat as of late (I would have thought that maybe they’d wait until 1000 shows).
The blurb explains why they (she) was invited back though.
Luz Elena Mendoza has such a far-reaching creative spirit that it’s almost impossible to confine her to a single musical identity. Which is why she’s one of just a handful of artists who’ve been invited back to the Tiny Desk to offer a revised musical vision.
Y La Bamba was on back in 2011 and they played a more acoustic style of music–accordion, percussion, guitar and lot of singers. For this show, lead Bamba, Luz Elena Mendoza looks quite different. In 2011, her hair was black and long, here it is silver and short–the neck tattoo is the same, though.
When she was here last with the band Y La Bamba, it was a vocal-heavy, folk outfit. The band’s sound has always been about vocals and her music has become even more so over the years.
Back in May, Y La Bamba played Non-Comm and Mendoza was pretty confrontational. She is less so here, allowing the music to speak for her.
And the music is quite different. It’s almost all in Spanish this time. There’s a second guitarist (Ryan Oxford), a bass (Zachary Teran), and a drummer (Miguel Jimenez-Cruz). She also has two backing singers, Julia Mendiolea who also plays keyboard and Isabeau Waia’u Walker.
I knew that Y La Bamba was the project of Mendoza, but i didn’t realize she did everything herself:
Y La Bamba’s albums are meticulously crafted sonic treats with her vocals layered like a choir made with a single voice. But in our offices, she called on vocalist Isabeau Waia’u Walker to replicate their distinct sound.
There’s a great variety of styles in this Tiny Desk.
“Paloma Negra” (“Black Pigeon”) [also played at Non-Comm] benefits from the voices of the entire band in a high-energy mediation on rhythm and voice.
It’s got a groovy, funky bassline and some cool echoing guitars. There’s a tension in the verses that is totally relieved in the super catchy chorus.
This song segues into “Rios Sueltos” which is a kind of rap–but sung. It’s bouncy and catchy but I sense is probably not a happy song, despite the catchy “hey ey ey heys” in the middle.
The song ends with a rumbling from Mendoza’s guitar as she starts up “Bruja de Brujas” [also played at Non-Comm].
There is a bruja energy and spirit to their performance, and not in the negative connotation that is the Spanish word for “witch.” In Luz Elena Mendoza’s hands a brujeria spirit is all about conjuring the kind of magic that took place on this video.
The song opens with a cool bass line and a somewhat menacing feel. It starts quietly, but when all three vocalists sing together it’s really lovely.
At the end of the song she sinks to the ground to play with her effects as the song fades out with trippy sounds. She jokes, “And aliens came down.:
Then she realizes, “we forgot to do one more. Sorry the aliens did come down… and took my brain.”
The final song is the fantastic “Cuatro Crazy” [also played at Non-Comm]. It is sweet and pretty and has echoing guitars and a vocal style not unlike a Cocteau Twins song. It even ends with a lot of “dah dah dah dahs.”
I really enjoy their music quite a lot and should really look into their stuff more.
[READ: October 6, 2019] “Abandoning a Cat”
This essay is, indeed, about abandoning a cat. The cat story has a happy ending (although another one might not). But mostly the essay is about how mundane events trigger memories of our parents.
He says that when he was little, his family had an older cat and they needed to get rid of it. “Getting rid of cats back then was a common occurrence, not something that anyone would criticize you for. The idea of neutering cats never crossed anyone’s mind.”
His father took the bike and he sat on the back with the cat in a box. They rode to the beach about 2 km from their house, put the box down, and headed back.
When they returned home, they opened the door and there was the cat “greeting us with a friendly meow, its tail standing tall.” His father’s expression of blank amazement “changed to one of admiration and, finally, to an expression of relief. And the cat went back to being out pet.” (more…)
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I had heard of Illiterate Light from NPR, but didn’t really know them. They played at Newport Folk Festival but were early on Saturday and we arrived after them.
I Just Read About That... 