Crossing borders with Y La bamba
THE SUBJECT of this week’s CBLive has drawn on a vast amount of musical influences spanning at least two countries.
To get an idea of where the roots of this expansive collection of influences originate it is necessary to take at Y La Bamba’s singer-songwriter, founder and leader, Luz Elena Mendoza’s background - not just her musical background but also that of her family.
Although she was born in San Francisco, her parents grew up in Mexico. The family then moved to Southern Oregon, where she was brought up in a strict Catholic household.
Her childhood summers were spent with cousins in the orchards of California’s San Joaquin Valley. It was here that she began to take an interest in the melodies, three part-harmonies and folktales of traditional Mexican mariachis.
These sounds are represented in Y La Bamba’s fourth album, Ojos del Sol, a release that Mendoza says represents a ‘celebration of family and community’.
In addition to this fusion of Mexican and American music, a journey to India in 2003 also had a profound effect on her. During the trip Luz fell ill and during her recovery she developed the expansive spiritual world view that would eventually act as a backdrop for her future music.
Luz explained to Ron Trembath in his 2017 interview for the online culture website Trainwreck’d Society: “The band started as myself in 2006. I brought a band together and since then it’s been an ongoing collaboration with friends and other talented musicians that I have had the honour of playing with as I keep growing in my expression.”
The band relocated to Portland and home-recorded an album entitled Alida St., which saw the light of day in 2008. The album was essentially a solo lo-fi offering of melancholic, sparsely instrumented tunes containing faint hints of the French/US duo CocoRosie.
The Decemberists’ Chris Funk-produced follow up, Lupon was released in 2010. Although still a good listen with some nice eclectic excerpts, its overall sound is more of a nod to the mainstream than the path that Mendoza had been alluding to on the debut. It felt as if Y La Bamba had missed its opportunity until the release of 2012’s Court the Storm.
Los Lobos’ Steve Berlin produced, engineered and played on the album, which drew critical acclaim across the board. With its harmonies and, as Spin website characterised it, ‘delightfully tweaked Mexifolk’ this is a great release that gave the first real hint at the essence of Y La Bamba. It contained the more than welcome mariachi influences, which, at times, become bed mates with openhearted tunes that, in feel and composition, recall Sufjan Steven’s Carrie & Lowell, or even some of Jonathan Richman’s Spanish-language offerings.
By suggesting the above artists, I am in no way suggesting that Luz was (or is) influenced by them, it is just that I am looking for a way to bring a focus to the broad and colourful sound that, to all intents and purposes is very difficult to categorise.
The wonderful inability to categorise Y La Bamba was further tested with the release of 2016’s Ojos Del Sol.
The unique sound and Luz Mendoza’s voice and lyrics come into their own throughout this release, which includes themes of spirituality, searching and metamorphosis.
“These are songs built to soundtrack coming to grips not just with one’s own mortality, but with the fragility of the world,” Mendoza says, and Ojos Del Sol is about being a ‘mother to these emotions’.
Many people would have settled with Ojos Del Sol as being the high water mark of their career, but Mendoza continues to forge ‘new narratives from old stories of heritage and family, tracing history while forging modern chicana feminism’.
“Music is an extension of everything I have inside. It’s how I emote,” Mendoza says.
These ‘new narratives’ are examined on this year’s Mujeres - a peach of a release that once again furthers their exploration of fusions of Mexican music, dream pop, folk and rock in an addictive, playful and subtle fashion, in addition to asking important questions and making poignant observations.
Another thing that Mujeres does is make the listener want to dance or, at the very least, smile broadly.
Do yourself a favour and at the very least give Y La Bamba a listen; Spotify and YouTube are your friends.
If you like what you hear then get along to Sala Stereo in Alicante on September 20.
In the words of the influential Pitchfork website: “It’s hard to think of anyone making music that sounds quite like this… Its formal inventiveness reflects her resilient spirit, letting it permeate every bit of this striking, vibrant record.”