album review: 'de todas las flores' by natalia lafourcade (spectrum pulse 10th year anniversary!)

I know better than to try and create an overarching narrative around the records released in a specific year, especially when I’m just focusing on what I cover or what I don’t cover, or what fans just so happen to vote in for my anniversary videos. Often times it comes down to the big, noticeable gaps where I just didn’t get to it on time or I didn’t have the same interest, or it just swings completely out of left-field - that’s not narratively satisfying nor interesting, and I know better than to assume it is.

But the three frontrunners for my anniversary video this year did fall into interesting territory, at least to me. The first was from Sabrina Carpenter, considered by many to be a proper mainstream breakthrough given that she broke away from Hollywood Records and wound up on Island - given that I’ve never cared for her sound and my reviews of her work have been received resoundingly badly, I’m happy that’s not what I have to deal with. The closest runner up was the collab between Brian Burton aka Danger Mouse and Black Thought of The Roots - absolutely a very good record that gives you precisely what you’d expect of this collaboration, even if the combination of that album and seeing The Roots live at Pitchfork Festival in Chicago last year just made me want another Roots album.

But the winner of this anniversary poll… I’ve talked about her before, although you may not have seen it given that it was in a compilation video in 2018… and it presents to me probably one of the more challenging albums in which I’ve covered in these anniversary videos, and that despite having ten years in making thousands of reviews, I still have so much more to learn. That’s right, folks, today, we’re going to talk about the critically adored album from Natalia Lafourcade, ‘De Todas Las Flores’ - I apologize in advance for the bad Spanish, there’s going to be a lot of it.

So here’s an unfortunate reality for me as a music critic: I don’t speak Spanish. Using deduction and a very rudimentary grasp of some common phrases I can read pieces of lyrics, but as you all know - especially if you’ve watched Billboard BREAKDOWN this year - I don’t speak it. Part of this - for an American-centric audience I think it bears a reminder - is because I’m Canadian, and we don’t have Spanish education or much exposure at all - we have far more exposure to French, which if I’m being brutally honest I’m not particularly good with either. The larger truth is that I don’t pick up other languages well - I’ve tried with French and Spanish and at one both Mandarin and Japanese on my own time, and it just doesn’t stick for me, it’s a big gap in my arsenal, and thus the big open disclaimer before this review is that I’m going to be relying on translations, and I know poetic nuance is lost therein.

And that’s tough as a music critic, because you know there’s a vast population around the world that do not speak English but are expected to know US-based music in English because of United States cultural hegemony worldwide, which is why nobody is particularly interested in me bitching here. And while you can argue in music that is changing with global audiences getting more of a voice and seeing tremendous success, the larger truth is that it can come in waves how much North America cares about music in other languages, with the larger caveat that if the tunes and grooves are good enough, nobody gives a shit about the lyrics anyway.

But with Natalia LaFourcade, it becomes more complicated because it’s not just about great grooves or tunes - she’s making stripped-down, highly traditional Mexican folk music, deeply rooted in the history, culture, and various musical movements of Latin America. I first discussed her work in the Musas series in 2018, a blend of traditional material and a few original compositions, and this was an approach she would continue for her next two albums, the Un Canto por Mexico duology, both of which were tied into the reconstruction of a cultural center in Mexico City damaged by an earthquake in 2017. Both of these albums also had a lot of guest stars, and showed LaFourcade venturing out of her comfort zone to embrace other variants of Latin music like bolero and son jarocho. But this new album would be different - just her this time, all original material, her first in this vein since 2015, bringing in more sounds across cumbia, samba, and bossa nova, for over an hour of warm, textured folk music recorded all analog near El Paso, Texas. Can’t say that my fans don’t give me a challenge on occasion… so what do I think?

Well, this is funny: despite all of preemptive caveats written before the album finally clicked for me, I find myself not really needing them as much as I expected… because this is an absolutely excellent album that even despite the language barrier, I found a ton to appreciate that only deepened once I translated the lyrics and found even more to like! Intensely warm, textured, organic and passionate, De Todas Las Flores is the sort of rejuvenating listen where its central goal is to recapture a belief in life itself and then manifests that goal through some of the colourful, varied, and joyous arrangements you’ll hear in Latin folk music, where even before I figured out what the songs meant many of the melodic flourishes were enough to captivate my attention. In other words… yeah, I get the hype, this is something special.

And what’s fascinating is how deceptively simple this album feels, because the straightforward formula sprawling across subgenres of Mexican folk and Latin jazz wouldn’t seem on its surface to throw any immediate surprises, especially sprawling over arrangements that take all the space they’re offered - running over an hour, I can see some perhaps not having the same patience to this in, or thinking that this isn’t really that special or forwardthinking within its space. I’d push back against that by saying within the confines of genre Lafourcade is pushing more than some might assume, especially in some of the more experimental flourishes in where she’ll push a song, but a closer comparison might be analogous to a country artist like Jason Eady: someone working within a traditionalist structure but refining it down to something both old and new with the practiced focus and control of a veteran. And this extends across the board - while I could nitpick about a few rougher vocal pickups, I can’t deny that Lafourcade is a simply stunning singer, in capturing grief, angst, joy, and wonderment as this album progresses, with a phenomenal command of dynamics, and in the few moments where choral backdrops or a male costar might join from the wings, they never take away from what is a very intimate and personal journey.

And I want to focus on that next, specifically in the lyrics and themes - again, insert caveat that I’m working from translations here, there may be additional subtleties I have missed. Because there’s very much a defined arc with this album, starting from a very low point where for every day it feels like a struggle for Lafourcade to keep going forward - she starts off feeling insignificant in the tides of life and death, wracked by grief, and thus the album becomes a healing journey within nature to rebuild and rediscover herself. Straightforward enough, would seem built to go down easy, but there are layers here - I like how the title track described a love so whirling and passionate that it can become toxic, the most vibrant and electric relationships that can be the most complex and perilous, but it’s not one where the breakup consumes her. Far from it, there’s a genuinely gorgeous moment of grace looking back on times spent as she ends it, but also how she had to find love for herself amidst the cacophony, and from there she’s both in conversation with herself and a vastness in the world at large; songs like ‘Llevame viento’ are very intimate in their framing but show Lafourcade acutely aware of a world that seems impossibly big, and there’s a humility that comes with finding one’s small place within it. It’s one reason I really love ‘Pajarito colibri’ beyond just the best individual melody on the album - translated as ‘hummingbird’, in nature it really feels like it nails that thematic juxtaposition. And from there the album moves with more confidence - they’re more joyous and dare I say direct, there’s more momentum in finding self love and now a newfound desire to love again by ‘Mi manera de querer’… and then we hit ‘Muerte’, translating directly to ‘death’. And what I love here is that while there is some fear of that stark ending, where it once clawed her down it’s now a force that drives her to keep on living, that’s taught her how to live, and where she’ll be comfortable to face it when her time comes. And from there, the sky is the limit to her passion - playful in her embrace of nature and those that would behold her, and in the final song, you realize what might have been a root of her grief - the loss of her nephew in 2021, where she wishes him luck in his passing and has been able to move on. I’m not going to say this is a revolutionary arc or theme in processing the cyclical nature of life and death and family, especially coaxed through Mexican folk traditions, but in so nimbly balancing intimacy and scale in the framing and execution, I’d argue Lafourcade catches a breadth of the emotional experience that feels humanistic and resonant and very well-realized.

And the music itself is a huge factor in all of that, and while the instrumental palette is pretty consistent all things considered, there are so many little moments I really appreciate. I love the subdued hazy strings orchestration that opens the album, setting up an overture that really resonates when juxtaposed with the very spare guitar, piano, and textured percussion around it that follow - it’s rougher, but that fits her feeling at her lowest point. The sultry, rounded restraint of the title track that builds to its choral drama impeccably well, and while I do think the album slows considerably for both ‘Pasan los dias’ and the windswept ‘Llevame viento’, in the former case I like the subtle shuffling snarl that builds in its final third and the flutters of acoustic guitar and horns across the latter are deceptively jazzy in their intricacy, especially in the transition to the creaking strings. Then there’s the lush piano and strings interplay of the bossa nova on ‘El lugar correcto’ and ‘Caminar bonito’ that’s so endlessly charming, the electric guitar snarling across ‘Maria la Curandera’, Mi manera de querer’ is a terrific horn and piano samba jam, and ‘Muerte’ brings in flamenco guitar, trumpets, and piano that later ignites into a howling jazz freakout that matches its dance with death itself! But I really love how the album ends, first with how joyous the borderline cha-cha of ‘Canta la arena’ is with its Western flair in the guitars and choral backing vocals that then allow the guitars to peal out over a sandy expanse, and then by the return to the spare but elegant acoustics that end the project on just a perfect note.

So to tie it all together… I was expecting this to be a much more difficult experience - a long album drenched in folklore in a language I don’t speak, that feels like I’m being set up for failure! But I’ll be damned if De Todas Las Flores is something special - an utterly beautiful album that’s incredibly easy to listen to with genuine melodic flair and superb production if you don’t know the lyrics, and a heartwarming, layered journey of healing if you do. I would not put this among my top favourites last year - part of that is the language barrier but this album does have patches that drag a bit, or feel not quite as sticky as I’d personally prefer - but it could have very easily made my top 50 and deservingly so.

What I appreciated most about this album, though, is what I like most about being a music critic and creator for the past decade: you steel yourself for a challenge and find yourself disarmed by delight, and another door opens to a space in which you don’t know yet but you can learn. I will never be able to cover everything that releases in a year in my lifetime - there is more music than ever that gets released in the modern day, to say nothing of so much of music history I just need to discover - but when you find an album that reminds you of the rewarding possibility that’s on that horizon… yeah, I’d call that something special. If you didn’t hear this last year, give it a proper chance, and given that I’m not going anywhere… let’s see what the next ten years might bring!