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4.2

Vibrant pop auteur returns to the fold with first album sung entirely in spanish – Gemelo.

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Rooted to the word: GEMELO

Many songwriters long for their Eureka! moment, their sole perspective redefined as they shake the confines of musicality out of their bodies. For Garcia, Gemelo felt very much like getting dropped in ice water. Born in LA with Mexican and Salvadoran heritage via her parents, Angélica is very much the embodiment of contemporary America, a cultural landscape evolving with its ever-present Hispanic influences. So, for such an artist looking either ways, it must of felt very free to make a ‘modernised American pop’ without feeling challenged to sing in English; almost as if it’s a prerequisite in the making of music itself.

Recorded over a month and a half in Virginia, Gemelo is Garcia’s saving grace in finding herself. The searing colours of her second not only marks her first album sung almost entirely in Spanish, but also probes into the deconstruction of Garcia’s crucial points of nerve – religion, spirit and womanhood as a whole. Out of the other expansive 10-track record, is a celebration of liberation.

It’s cathartic in many ways. It’s a hybrid-pop whirlygig of hypnotics laced with a house lull marks it as either a well-worth respite beside the fire or a naked dance among the flames. A free bird angelic in flight, Garcia has already drawn comparisons to the likes of Christine and the Queens and Caroline Polachek. Strong artists who are very much in their own lanes as it is.

It has already come a staple amongst BBC 6Music auditors alike, with finding herself on many festival rotations this Summer.

Spanish expose: Gemelo

The record is certainly not one-dimensional either, with enough delectable troves tucked away in the ten tracks, to come back and quell over something else. Juanita is a funky sweltering of ostinato bass; alluring under the sweaty collar – while El Que is a frantic jitter of hyper-pop. Juanita meanwhile, doesn’t offer to break away from heritage, as the clave variant emerges a triumphant motif in Latino music.

It’s a vibrant casting of Garcia’s best work – it’s even more liberating that it’s sung in Spanish. The rip-roars of Gemini and Paloma almost round off a celebrating healing for the artist; overly satisfied in her accomplishments.

Gemelo is out now.

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