NPR Music - Alt.Latino: Paloma Morphy, rusowsky, Pachyman

Episode Date: May 21, 2025

Felix Contreras and Anamaria Sayre share six new songs from across the spectrum of Latin music.Featured artists and songs:• Paloma Morphy, "1 tipo nuevo"• Camila Meza, "Persistir"• Rusowsky, "Malibu"• Ines Velasco, "Todo Es Para Decir"• Pachmyan, "Hard to Part"• Las Chorizeras, "Blue Eyed Man"See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

Ana, have you seen sinners? You got to see it. This is like a reclamation of the blues on the part of a completely younger African-American generation. Yeah. Plus, it's a zombie movie and a vampire movie, which is not scary because if I sat through it, he would consider it. I hate horror movies. But you know what? Life is a horror show. I don't want to see more. It's like horror light.

It's really about culture and life and all the things that. we talk about on the show. Like, who has a right to sing what? It has Michael B. Jordan in it? Oh, my God. Done. But it's also, again, like I said, so much about what we talk about on the show. Who has a right to sing what? Yeah, yeah, I get it. Michael B. Jordan's in it. That's, that's really like careful. Okay, it's hard to not notice him, but that wasn't my focus on the film. Let's just start the show, okay? From NPR music, this is Alt Latino. I'm Felix Contreras. And I'm Anna Maria Sayer. Lettzee. may begin and the chisemay is that I guess we have some new music this week feeling. All right.

Kick it off. All right. This artist, I have actually brought her up a number of times, so I don't know if you remember. I do remember. Her name is Paloma Murphy. She's a Mexico City native, and this is actually her debut album. I'm going to play your track. It's called Un Tipo Nuevo.

You got to be able to stop in my head. Are you hooked? Are you hooked? Oh, yes, yes. Felix, she has got to be one of the most inventive dynamic pop vocalists out there right now. She is pop, but in this kind of alternative. very distinct way. She actually does something really different.

Production-wise, lyrically, on every single song, and it all still sounds like her. And I think to have a command of your voice like that that quickly into your career, I mean, it's really impressive. It's like what we praise, you know, the Olivia Rodriguez for, let's say, which I know, Felix, you don't really know who that is.

We just tell you about that. But anyways, just two years ago, she was in law school, Felix. And she just started writing songs. She played one open mic. She had never performed before. And she was like, you know what? I'm just going to play an open mic, whatever.

Starts writing songs and just exploded. I actually reached out to her. And we talked a little bit about her first show ever in Mexico City this weekend. She told me she's really nervous. I'm amazed by how far along she already is. I want to play one other song that I really love from the record. And it's called Guyama. I'm,

I don't I'm my name but I hope that you go well I'm

the story that in the in the one day was with and

I'm I'm trying my paper I'm I'm that I'm the

I'm the world I'm I'm So what's really interesting to me is that the whole songwriting process. You're saying she's never performed in front of an audience before. And more power to her. But the usual songwriting process is that people write songs,

they take them out on the road and they try them out and they see what works, what doesn't work, what the audience responds to, you know, I've heard of bands doing both. but mostly taking the songs out ahead of time and trying them out in the audience. To me, that's the normal process. So it's fascinating that she has such a clear vision of her own musical identity

by just working probably with a small circle of friends and advisors and co-musicians and producers and stuff. It's just blowing my mind that she's never played a live show. This were a couple songs from Paloma Murphy's new album. Ow? Ow. Oh. Ow.

Okay. It's French. Letters are A-U. Guys, I really can't pronounce French. I don't know. Figure it out. I think that there are more musicians from Latin America putting out jazz than ever before. That's just my sense, my feeling.

And this next musician is someone who I've been listening to for a while, actually. Her name is Camila Mesa. She's a guitarist, vocalist, composer. She's originally from Santiago, Chile. She's completely immersed now in the New York jazz scene. She's got her first new album in six years coming out in June. She's dropped a couple singles, and this one is called Persistir.

That voice is so lovely. And you can hear how she mixes that voice with the instruments that come from both the jazz world and other parts of the music genre scene. And in this particular track, she's playing an acoustic guitar. She's another example of this bilingual approach to jazz. Her early influences, she says, included jazz guitarists like Pat Mathini, George Benson, John McLaughlin, as well as musicians like Victor Hara, Milsen Nacimento, Mercedes Sosa, all the great big names of Latin American folk music.

And I hear that distinction in her music and others who originally come from South America because there's more emphasis on melody rather than music theory, which is like ranging the notes in a cohesive, logical way. This is her first album of all originals. And she says most of the songs were written in 2019 and 2020 during the process of going through the pandemic and pregnancy and then motherhood. And she says her goal in writing is to quote, portray the human capacity to transform our reality from evident darkness

that surrounds it into its potential for light and beauty. The album also features other collaborations, including Harpest Margaret Davis on the track. She's a very talented musician in her own right, and I just have to point out that she performed with Bob Weir and the Wolf Brothers on their tiny desk, which ran in March of 2020. Camila Mesa is the artist.

The album is called Portal, and that track was called Persistir. My turn. Felix, this is another artist. I have brought up a couple times now. I feel like I'm always leaving you little like Easter eggs for what's to come. Rosowski, he's part of this Spanish scene that I'm obsessed with. I talk about them all the time, the Ralphie Chews, even Pablo Pablo. This is Rosowski's debut album, his personal project.

And oh my goodness, Felix, it's so delightful. This is the song off of the album, Daisy. It's called Malibu. This is one of those instances where I have not. heard the song before and I'm just blown away. And I think that it sort of segues from the Camila Mesa track. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. This is a man who is a producer first. So he's used to playing with sounds, almost sound design in these very kind of like inventive and creative ways. And then you take in the fact that the man has classical piano training. There is a bass there of really, really strong, beautiful piano that he kind of builds all these really fun and interesting electronic sounds around. Felix, I heard raw from him

immediately when I heard those raw vocals. There's so much soul under all those layers of effects, too. There's so much soul to his voice. He's a beautiful singer. I do want to play one other track from the album. This is a single he released earlier. this year from this album. It's called Sophia. That was two songs in my

I'd like a break. That was two songs off his debut album called Daisy. That was Rzowski. So much to take in. I think we need to take a break. All right? Gorgeous. We'll be right back.

We'll be right back. And we're back. Felix. How are you going to top what I just did? Okay, with more jazz. I'm going to play some music for. from Ines Velasco. She is a jazz composer and arranger.

She lives in New York City. She's originally from Guadalajara. She says that during the break from her first semester at the Berkeley School of Music in Boston, about 12 years ago, she read the poetry of a guy named Jorge Eskina. And she kept that poetry in mind and eventually constructed amazing jazz arrangements

around his poetry for her album, A Flash of Cobalt Blue. And the album starts with the poet reading from the opening poem of the book, I'm going to play the opening part of this track. Again, this is Ines Velasco. In other hands. All

is going to be our weekly deep dive, okay? Oh, here we go. Buckle up, everybody.

We're at the family party and Theo Felix has something to say. This book of poetry is a meditation on death and the death of this poet's

father. And it's something that pops up often in music from Mexico. In particular, the dance of death that we all do with our lives. For those who don't know, Felix loves death. It's part of the whole Mexican, Mexican-American existence,

you know, iconography, everything, right? Next, listen to how she has arranged horns behind the tenor sax solo. Still reflecting that opening line, All Is para De Cere. Everything remains to be said. So there's a feeling of inconclusiveness that sometimes accompanies the passing of a life. Check this out.

Her compositions and arrangement remind me of a very well-known jazz composer Maria Schneider, who also works with big giant orchestras, and this is exactly what Ines Velasco does. What they have in common is that the art that they create by arranging those little black dots, the notes on paper, to be interpreted by musicians who then create these amazing sonic tapestries. There is a well-known precedent for this type of jazz.

It was a collaboration between Miles Davis and the arranger, Gil Evans. This is late 50s, early 60s. They made music with symphony orchestras to create a new form of jazz expression. Check out the opening section of their album, Sketches of Spain from 1960. See if you can hear some of the sonic similarities. I know this album. And now listen to the excitement, the drama of the track that we've been listening to. Check it out. And it ends again with the idea that everything's still to be said. And also the idea that the dream is just a second life. Wow.

So Mexican poetry and jazz. I mean, who does that? Ines Velasco does that. The album's called A Flash of Cobalt Blue. It's going to come out on June 6th. There are already two singles out right now, and there are more to come. All right. What's next, Donna?

This is the second album that I got special permission to give a little sneak preview of. This is the song False Moves by Bachiman off of his album. coming May 23rd called Another Place. Reminds me of the phrase, I had a lot of fun while I was waiting around for something to happen. You know, and again, we mean it so unoffensively because I... Right. But the whole record is kind of that.

It is. Yeah, the repetition is the point. Yes, right? Exactly. The album moves in that way that I find so refreshing. Because you're not really working towards anything. Like you're not reaching the climax. To me, it's actually like this amazing exercise

in being a little more mindful of like, no, we're just in it right now. He calls this album an ode to L.A., and I think he forgets how Caribbean he is. Especially that track feels very L.A. I want to play you another one. It's called Hard to Part. And it already actually was released as a single. Anna, you said something that is just striking a chord with me.

The mindfulness. I'm like, oh, did I? Yes. We exist in this moment. Once this moment is over, it's in the past, and it doesn't exist anymore. And the idea of the song, the first part of the song, the verse, the chorus, you know, the bridge, it takes us out of the moment. Music like this, it just repeats. It's over and over.

It is like a deep meditation on the moment. Right. I was listening recently to the electronic artist John Hopkins. Do you know him, Felix? I do not. He works a lot with like Fortet, all those guys, Brian Eno. Felix, like, it is so subtle. He does these, like, super, like many, many minutes songs

where it's like the repetition of the same exact thing over and over and over. You get this tiny little barely you can hear it melody, and it's the same thing over and over. And every, like, two minutes, he'll layer, like, one extra little thing on there. You know what I mean? And it's like, you have to be so careful and listen so closely and be like okay with sitting there with no change. And then you get rewarded with just a little nugget of a little something

and it feels so special and distinct because you've been waiting and you've been sitting in the moment and you've been enjoying the moment. And we don't hear a ton of music like that anymore. It's like two-minute songs and it's boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And I think like Pachiman, who, you know, a lot of this song is actually pretty tropical. I didn't play those tracks necessarily.

But he's bringing the culture. He's bringing where he's from, but he's doing it in a way where he's making you sit and pay attention and sit in front of the record player and listen to it. And it's just really refreshing to me. Those were two tracks off of the new Pachiman album, Another Place.

All right, Felix. Take it home. Time for a little bit of whiplash. There is a new quartet from Southern California. It features the vocalist Nancy Sanchez. This group blurs the lines traditional acoustic Mexican music and Americana slash folk music. The group was called Las Choriceras.

They've dropped a few singles. Their full album is due out mid-May. This is a track called Blue-Eyed Man. Six feet tall, dirty blonde and smile. He left me no chance. So hard is game. That's when I broke the, Felix, you and your country, man.

Don't even get me started on it. And the story behind this is that she was visiting her family in Toluca, Mexico, her hometown. And she came up with the idea for an all-female group doing the music she grew up with, which includes Mexican music and also another big influence. Americana, which is not exactly country, maybe country rough around the edges, I guess you can call it. Toluca is known for its chorizo, which is a meat product. like a sausage, and it's very different than a chorizo in Spain. I made that mistake, and we'll never make that mistake again.

Asking for chorizo in Spain, I'm like, what is this? Where's my chorizo? The important lessons. The Mexican chorizo, for those that don't know, it's soft. It's like a soft sausage that you put in, you scramble with your eggs. The people from Toluca call themselves choriceros or choriceras because of their regional product. And when she figured that out, she had a name for her band.

Love it. Love Me-inspired band. Yeah. Yeah. Me inspired band. It almost slipped by me. The band is called Las Choriceras. The track is called Blue-Eyed Man.

The album's going to be called Las Chorizetas. Again, from our friend Nancy Sanchez. Keep putting it out because we'll keep playing it. Felix, I think our time here is done. You have been listening to All Latino from NPR Music. Simon Retner has the almost impossible job of making sense of this by cutting all this audio together and we appreciate his work every week. He is our audio editor.

The woman who keeps us on track who deals with this on a regular basis is Grace John. In real life. Saraya Mohammed also keeps us on track. She is executive producer from MPR music. And Keith Jenkins is VP of Music and Visuals. Thank you so much for listening. It's just been a long time. I'm Felix.

Gotta de Nost. Thank you for listening. I'm not anybody say here. Thank you for listening.