Though her presence on recordings and on concert stages has been nearly ubiquitous, it's remarkable to note that
De Todas las Flores is
Natalia Lafourcade's first album of original material since 2015's Grammy-winning
Hasta la Raiz. It was born from romantic heartbreak in 2018. During the healing process, she kept lyric fragments and melodic sketches on her phone. When it was time to record, she was surprised to discover it contained 20 ideas, many worth exploring. She enlisted old friend
Adan Jodorowsky (scion of filmmaker
Alejandro Jodorowsky) as co-producer. Together they invited guitarist
Marc Ribot, bassist
Sebastian Steinberg, and French percussionist
Cyril Atef, as well as 20-year-old pianist/arranger Emiliano Dorantes as music director. They recorded live to analog tape at Sonic Ranch in Tornillo, Texas, while strings, choirs, brass, and reeds were recorded in Veracruz, Mexico.
The first 90 seconds of "Vine Solita" is introduced by chamber strings in overture style.
Lafourcade enters with her nylon guitar. She sings with a reedy, barely restrained passion as sparse piano, brushed cymbals, and
Ribot's electric guitar underscore her lines. The title cut commences with her guitar playing bossa, as bass percussion falls in alongside her. She sings to an absent lover about memories, laughter, lovemaking, and pain.
Ribot adds a bolero tinge as the tempo increases, but in a simmer, highlighting the poignant poetry in
Lafourcade's devastating lyrics. A few tracks later, "El Lugar Correcto" emerges as a lush, jazzy romantico with sweeping strings. Her protagonist apologizes for being absent, saying only that she had to return to herself before encountering another. "María la Curandera" is adapted from a poem by
María Sabina. Its musical signature embraces Cuban danzón and Mexican cumbia, with insistent organic percussion (some played on the wooden body of the double bass), strings, mariachi horns, a dramatic backing chorus, and
Ribot's canny, skronky guitar playing. "Caminar Bonito," another bossa-tinged ballad, is a love song offered in the present tense with gorgeous strings that hover above the band. "Mi Manera de Querer" weds Latin jazz, samba, and son in a horn- and percussion-driven paean to love itself. "Muerte" is one of two songs based on poems by David Aguilar. Its intricate arrangement melds uptempo son Mexicana and flamenco with Cuban piano montunos, dissonant saxes, and woolly guitar as
Lafourcade jauntily delivers a hymn of gratitude to death (emotional, physical, and psychological) for teaching her protagonist to live in the moment. "Canta la Arena," the other poem by
Aguilar, is outfitted as a mutant cha-cha, with staggered brass, reeds, pianos, and guitars, as bass and percussion create a nearly funky backbeat.
The live-in-studio presentation on
De Todas las Flores really works. One can feel the physical presence of the musicians; throughout, they play with exquisite taste, emotion, and adventure.
Lafourcade's singing is warm, immediate, intimate, and commanding. This album may have been born from heartbreak, but it resonates with acceptance, conviction, and triumph. ~ Thom Jurek