Shout out to subscriber N_Gorski for immediately’s choose. They popped into the feedback on final week’s advice to ask what I considered the brand new Sotomayor report. Nicely, I hadn’t really heard it but, however now I’m obsessed.
The group consists of siblings Raul and Paulina Sotomayor from Mexico Metropolis. Wabi Sabi is their first report since 2020’s Origenes, and it’s pure pleasure. You possibly can look again via every thing I’ve really helpful during the last a number of months, and “enjoyable” just isn’t the way you’d describe most of it. However that’s what Wabi Sabi is — it’s enjoyable, chaotic, and dancey as hell.
I used to be solely conversant in Sotomayor earlier than this due to a quick documentary about Raul’s varied initiatives made by Ableton. In that video, he discusses how his method to creating music has modified through the years, how he used to attempt to make issues sound “correct” and “clear,” however now it’s about “how a lot can we distort it” or “how a lot can we stretch it.”
You possibly can definitely hear that within the music. The primary observe, “Me dejo llevar,” opens with a synth arpeggio that has clearly been timestretched to inside an inch of its life. It’s loaded with digital artifacts. The entire observe has a light-weight crust, as if every thing is clipping simply ever so barely. “Who’s there” equally bristles as the perimeters, sounding like a dance flooring consistently on the verge of erupting right into a riot.
The classic digital drum hits, droning bass, and reverb-drenched noise stabs by no means attain full catharsis, however simmer superbly into album spotlight “Vida.” Right here, Paulina finds a sultry gear as she croons over a UK garage-inflected observe that ultimately erupts into an afrohouse membership banger.
Wabi Sabi ricochets between genres with infectious abandon. Afrobeat, cumbia, electro pop, R&B, and extra all collide in what is well essentially the most enjoyable album of 2026 to this point. What makes it all of the extra spectacular is that, for all its unconventional sounds (a donkey jaw?) and stylistic excursions, Sotomayor nonetheless has a definite imaginative and prescient that holds the report collectively.
At no level does the chaos threaten to overwhelm. By no means does it really feel just like the duo are merely throwing issues on the wall to see what sticks; every thing is a fastidiously made determination in service of the social gathering. The gently meandering guitar of “Yo se todo de ti,” the traditional home of “Todo se derrumba,” and the dancehall of “Prende la palma” all really feel unified by Paulina’s simple charisma on the mic and Raul’s uninhibited sonic curiosity.
