Lido Pimienta – Talento
The Barranquilla-born, Toronto based multimedia artist Lido Pimienta made her name with a sound rooted in ancestral reconnection by way of the Afro-Indigenous rhythms of her native Colombia and a DIY punk mentality forged with the tools of electropop. Last month she announced the transformative new album Caribenya and today is sharing “Talento”, a double-entendre of the word for “talent” and the Caribbean slang for being slow, where Pimienta takes apart her own self-doubt and tries to reconcile internal flaws.
With her 2020 breakout album Miss Colombia Pimienta sharpened cumbia, electropop, dembow, and chamber music into a cohesive and profound reflection on identity, beauty, and the realities of life as a Caribbean woman with Wayuu roots. After her ‘Miss Colombia’ tour was postponed, Pimienta dug deep into classical music. The result was Gregorian-chant inspired ‘La Belleza’, a decolonization of the European classical space born of her ballet composition Lux Aeterna, a historic collaboration with choreographer Andrea Miller that made Pimienta the first woman of color to compose for the New York City Ballet.
Caribenya syncretizes all of Pimienta’s influences at a peak moment in her artistry. It’s creative ties to the lush classical symphonies of ‘La Belleza’ and ‘Miss Colombia’’s sonic blueprint of electro-cumbia rebajada are married on Caribenya with ambient melodies, pop sensibility, and dembow riddims grounded in a personal politics. Created with a slew of collaborators including Mexican cumbia collective Turbo Sonidero and Arrabalero of Grupo Jejeje, the songs refuse to be displaced.
The new album’s title is a playful portmanteau of the word “Caribe” and “Enya”, a nod to the mysterious Irish singer Pimienta is a fan of. The esoteric figure of Enya has loomed over Pimienta, who listens to her music to concentrate while writing. Often compared to Björk and Natalia Lafourcade in part due to her scope, generation, and ambition of her work, Pimienta prefers to align herself with the legendarily reclusive ambient diva before anyone else.
“I really admire the way that [Enya] stays out of everyone’s business and that she’s not associated with evil in any way, shape, or form; she’s just a nice Irish Catholic lady, living in her castle with her cats and her dogs and her piano playing her music, and I think that that is such an aspirational person,” she says. “So when I think about Enya…she’s that bitch, you know? When she comes out, she’s like, oh, I’m gonna make the soundtrack for this multi-billion dollar movie franchise, and I didn’t even leave my house to do it. There’s something so cunty about that.”
Caribenya is an album that relies on joyous resistance, on the moments of escape on the dancefloors and beaches and living rooms of our loved ones as the world burns. Don’t call it escapism (or worse, theorizing) — this is one of alternative music’s great experimentalists letting just a little loose while never losing sight of the greater issues at hand. ‘La Belleza’ and ‘Caribenya’ will be released together as a double LP on gold vinyl. On July 9 Pimienta will be leading an orchestral performance at Burlington, Ontario’s Royal Botanical Gardens and has announced a Fall West coast tour beginning September 15.
TOUR DATES
July 9 – Burlington, ON @ Royal Botanical Gardens
Sept 15 – Seattle, WA @ Neumos
Sept 16 – Portland, OR @ Wonderland Ballroom
Sept 18 – San Francisco, CA @ Bimbos 365
Sept 19 – Los Angeles, CA @ Ford Theatre
Sept 25 – Mexico City, Mexico @ Pitchfork CDMX
Oct 29 – Copenhagen, Denmark @ ALICE
Oct 30 – Oslo, Norway @ Oslo World Fest
11/2 – Barcelona, Spain @ Upload
11/3 – Madrid, Spain @ Villanos
11/5 – London, UK @ Pitchfork at Village Underground
11/7 – Paris, France @ Cafe de la Danse
11/8 – Brussels, Belgium @ Botanique
11/9 – Amsterdam, Netherlands @ Bitterzoet
11/10 – Berlin, Germany @ Bi Nuu
#lidopimienta