With two albums under her belt already and an appearance on Barack Obama’s annual end of year playlist back in 2019, Angélica Garcia already has a firm following. Things stepped up a gear late last year, though, with her signing to Partisan Records and the release of the tracks ‘Y Grito’ and ‘El Que’. This kicked off the move towards her first body of work since 2021 EP ‘Echo Eléctrico’.
Something of a genre chameleon, her sound reflects her Brazilian, Mexican and American heritage, spanning pop, punk, Latin music and more. Despite drawing on such a wide range of influences, she consolidates them all into a fully realised whole, with her striking voice the centrepoint.
Now she’s back with her first track of 2024, ‘Juanita’. Influenced by the story of her great great grandmother, the song provides Garcia’s take on the Colombian genre cumbia. With a rich, timeless sound that also gives the genre a modern twist, it’s a bold statement of intent for the year ahead.
“‘Juanita’ is my take on a cumbia”, she says. “Many cumbias have lyrics about pain and longing. My intention was for the tension and confusion in the song to feel like remembering a past life. I wanted to capture what the shadow side of grief does to us. This song in many ways feels heavily connected to my ethnic and spiritual cultures”.
Garcia will be in the UK for shows this summer, including a headline performance at The Lower Third in London on 12 Jun.
🎧 Watch the video for ‘Juanita’ below.