(c) Alicia J. Rose

Artist: Y La Bamba
Title: Lupon
Label: Tender Loving Empire
Genre: Indie : Roots
UPC: 751937386629
Territory: Worldwide
Release Date: 09.28.10

With Y La Bamba, Luzelena Mendoza draws from both her strict Catholic upbringing as an only daughter of a Mexican immigrant and a debilitating illness that led her to fall away from her faith, to create what LA Weekly calls “Devendra Banhart-influenced art-folk with hazy femme vocals and traditional Mexican sounds.”

Luzelena grew up spending her summers on a farm in California’s San Joaquin Valley. It was in these strong Mexican communities that she would soak up the melodies and the stories that were being told while, as she remembers it, “the men with tassel hats” strummed their guitars and sang their traditional folk songs in three part harmonies.

With a raw songbook of home recordings under her belt and a new group of musicians to help Mendoza with her musical vision, Y La Bamba began to captivate audiences. Eventually, Y La Bamba would attract the attention of The Decemberists guitarist, Chris Funk, who offered his production skills for the band’s first studio recording. Funk worked tirelessly to capture Y La Bamba’s rustic tones, songs inspired by the traditional tunes of Mendoza’s childhood, and her signature vocals that resemble the sounds spilling out of a 1930’s Victrola. Dubbing the confidently stunning body of songs Lupon (after a nickname that Mendoza’s father despised), Y La Bamba has emerged from the studio, ready to wow listeners everywhere. Lupon is an album ripe with sweeping, symphonic, complex yet airy female led indie-art-folk rock with breathtaking harmonies and some traditional Mexican flare.

For a preview of Lupon and to hear Luzelena’s signature voice, check out “Juniper,” the beautifully haunting song that was also featured by Spinner (and countless others!) as a free download.

From the tripwire: “Opening line My temple has been compromised/ I was meant to rise/ six feet above my bed takes on a heavy meaning when you know Y La Bamba singer Luz Elena was inspired by a loss of her Mexican Catholic faith after becoming incredibly ill. Can’t help but think of Frida Kahlo, who poured her own sick-frustration into a similar vein of haunting, surreal art, reflecting the overwhelming desire to escape the confines of one’s own physicality. And speaking of rising, Elena’s voice floats like some kind of cirrus cloud over the oceanic psych-folk tones on “Juniper,” where religious imagery weighs heavy on her psyche but can’t keep her spirit down. The Portland native’s forthcoming, gorgeous full-length, Lupon (produced by The Decemberists’ Chris Funk and out September 28 on Tender Loving Empire), completes the song cycle, offering personal deliverance where the church could not.”

Y la Bamba
“Juniper” (mp3)
from “Lupon”
(Tender Loving Empire)

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