La Chica shares new single "Agua" from her new album La Loba.
La Chica (Sophie Fustec), is a Venezuelan/French composer, pianist and singer set to release her new project La Loba, the result of a spiritual awakening after the loss of her brother and forms part of her personal revolution, as a woman and as
an artist
Spread over 7 tracks, La Loba is a sparse and gripping work
featuring La Chica's piano and ghostly voice floating through electronic flourishes and minimal production subtleties leaving
a beautifully eccentric and spiritual slice of art that sidesteps
from her 2019 debut album Cambio.
With a similarity to Cuban singers and fellow Parisians Ibeyi, La Chica's music takes a more psychedelic path although like with Ibeyi, Santería (the rhythms of Orishas) plays a part in the creative process.
La Chica's music emboldens her newly found sense of identity about what it is to be a woman (La Chica means girl in Spanish), a woman balancing her Venezuelan and French heritage. With the polarised politics and everything else 2020 has had to throw at us,
personal development has become increasingly difficult and so, La Loba, is her revolution.
The loss of her brother (seen on the front right of the cover) in July 2020 spurred further spiritual work and personal growth and is also the theme of the first single Drink. Sung in English, unlike the majority of the album, which is sung in Spanish, it`s a frank admission
about the loss felt. La Chica explains,
"I'ts about having my brother inside of me when I drink,
and to be able to stay in that state of consciousness"
Agua's simplicity is its beauty. Layered choral sweeps and the piano tinkering like rain pattering on the window, gives the track an angelic essence with subtle Latin rhythmic patterns grooving underneath.
A rebel, a warrior, shamanic and fragile to the last, La Loba's journey-like shape feels like an archived ritual to La Chica's Venezuelan ancestors and it's enormously coherent as an artistic statement, yet ultimately it shines as a gift for the ages, from a loving sister to her treasured brother, residing in the heavens.
Picture: Guillaume Malheiro
