Buscabulla Join Alex Anwandter On New Single 'Mi vida en llamas'

04-24-2023

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(Chromatic) Alex Anwandter today released his new single "Mi vida en llamas ft. Buscabulla," the latest preview of his forthcoming album, El diablo en el cuerpo, due out on May 26th. The heavy-hearted yet heavenly track is his first collaboration with the Puerto Rico-based duo Buscabulla, and sees singer Raquel Berrios trading verses with Anwandter as swooning, technicolor strings and warm saxophones build out its scintillating groove.

Translated to "My life up in flames," Anwandter explains the song is "about a conversation I had with a girl-friend back in the beginning of the pandemic-when both the world and our respective love lives seemed to be going up in flames. Overall it's a positive song though: it's about how the world might be a bad place, but life, in spite of all, is pretty wonderful. I also thought it'd be great to make it an actual dialogue with another person; Raquel and her amazing voice as a stand-in for my friend."

Self-recorded and produced over recent years since his move to New York City, El diablo en el cuerpo (The devil in the body) is the Chilean artist/producer's most vibrant work to date: a 16-track neon dance epic, featuring a large ensemble of live musicians, orchestral arrangements, and additional collaborations with Julieta Venegas, Javiera Mena, and Christina Rosenvinge. His fifth album presents a wildly extravagant form of dance music built on larger-than-life emotion: all-consuming desire, burning infatuation, and heartbreak so exquisitely brutal it turns transcendent. He matches that unrestrained feeling with his elegant yet adventurous sense of composition, once again tapping into the sophisticated musicality that's earned him three Latin Grammy Award nominations, including Best Alternative Album for his previous full-length (2018's critically acclaimed Latinoamericana). In the tradition of pop iconoclasts like Prince, Anwandter hits every pleasure center while exploring infinitely complex matters of the heart and mind and soul-ultimately turning the album into a dazzling meditation on queer life and love.

Anwandter drew from his voluminous musical vocabulary across the album-which first took shape in the early days of lockdown-mining inspiration from such eclectic sources as proto-synth-pop, the avant-garde disco of Arthur Russell, Marvin Gaye's 1976 quiet-storm classic I Want You, Latin ballads, Brazilian pop, and post-romantic classical music. In addition to the featured collaborators, Anwandter also shaped the album's maximalist sound with the help of a Buenos Aires-based orchestra and an extensive lineup of female backing vocalists.

"Mi vida en llamas ft. Buscabulla" follows previous album singles "Precipicio" ("Precipice"), "Qué piensas hacer sin mi amor?" ("What are you going to do without my love?"), and "Maricoteca," which earned praise and support from Rolling Stone, NPR Music (Alt.Latino playlist), Billboard, Remezcla, and more.