Y La Bamba, ‘Dibujos de Mi Alma’

Tender Loving Empire YouTube

"Dibujos de Mi Alma," the lead single from experimental folk band Y La Bamba's upcoming album, Lucha, captures how it feels to yearn for someone while trying to avoid the pitfalls of toxic love. Lead vocalist and producer Luz Elena Mendoza Ramos offers a glimpse into her soul, singing in a whispery tone that conjures a long-lost lover's type of despair: "Tanto tiempo sin hablar contigo / Sin saber de tu bienestar / Extraño la manera cuando andabas conmigo" ("So much time without speaking to you / Without knowing how you have been / Missing the way you walked with me"). Her words float over lucid guitar and whirling synth, backed by a conga beat and punctuated with buoyant trumpet and reverberating sighs. The track builds into a disorienting wash of delay, blending romance with feelings of dissociation and loneliness, until the lyrics resolve the story in an ambivalent place: "Se ven como se ven."

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