Callejera

La Perla have established themselves so insidiously into the fabric of contemporary Colombian music that it’s hard to believe this is their debut album, but the facts do not lie. After a stellar series of singles and EPs dating back to 2017, including their feminist anthem ‘Guayabo’, the all-female trio have finally unleashed their first long-player and it does not disappoint.

Their inspiration from the start was folkloric cumbia, the powerhouse vocal-and-percussion traditions of Totó la Momposina and buoyant rhythms and melodies of Los Gaiteros de San Jacinto, and sure enough ‘El Sol’ is pure Totó, a vocal-and-drum paean to Colombia’s peasants, while ‘Florion’ is a beguiling gaita-led instrumental. But what’s most interesting is when they try something new, like transposing Peruvian cumbia to multi-layered vocals and cowbell or the purely vocal ‘Respiro’, which, like a number of tracks here, is concerned with the natural world. It doesn’t always work – ‘Ojos Brillantes’ gets lost in its spacey dub intentions and ‘Rebajada’, an attempt at uber-slow Mexican cumbia, suffers from its sparse instrumentation. Yet these are minor indiscretions, a possible consequence of La Perla’s ambition. There is so much to savour here, including fine collaborations with Frente Cumbiero, La Dame Blanche and Briela Ojeda.