Argentinian duo Ca7riel & Paco Amoroso were one of the breakthrough acts of last year, powered by a late 2024 appearance on NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert that lofted them into Anglo consciousness and cemented with their performances at Coachella, followed quickly by an equally great North American tour in support of their EP “Papota,” which went on to win a Grammy and five Latin Grammys.
Needless to say that was quite a year, and while the wildly talented Latin/hip-hop/dance/multi-genre duo have been friends since childhood and have performed together for much of their lives, they experienced what press materials describe as an “earth-shattering meltdown” (which, according to the documentary video below, may have been significantly less serious than reports initially suggested).
Despite all that — and despite the not-entirely-encouraging fact that the album’s first single featured Sting and the second Jack Black — the new album accomplishes what their earlier releases didn’t quite: It delivers the fun, finesse and excitement of their live sets, where the duo are accompanied by nine musicians (including a horn section) and you’ll see Ca7riel rapping loudly while pulling elastic faces and jumping up and down, then picking up a guitar and peeling off a dextrous, jazzy solo. “Free Spirits” is a wild progression that finds them zipping from one style to another with a fluidity that’s as focused as it is head-spinning.
The duo rarely stays in one place for more than a minute: The album opens with a distinctively Middle Eastern-sounding chant, the second song is suave Latin groove “Goo Goo Gaga,” featuring Jack Black. Elsewhere, “No Me Serve Mas” is an odd combination of hip-hop (in Spanish, of course) and electronic music; there’s the acoustic ballad “Vida Loca” (which sounds nothing like the similarly titled Ricky Martin song); there’s relatively straight-ahead rock on “Todo Rai” and the Sting-featuring “Jesus,” which also features a hilariously ‘80s flavored saxophone. The pulsating “I Want It Now” combines a hard-hitting beat with an interpolation of the incredible Bulgarian State Female Choir (the otherworldly traditional vocal ensemble who were big in alternative circles during the ‘80s and ‘90s); the final song is called “Himno al mediocre” (“anthem to the mediocre”).
Throughout, there are abrupt stylistic shifts so incongruous that it feels like they’ve gone into a different song (or even a different band), but they haven’t: “Free Spirits,” true to its name, bounces between styles and genres so quickly and energetically that the album covers an astonishing amount of ground in a surprisingly short time — and you literally never know what’s coming next.
Leave a Reply