Orígenes

Since emerging from Mexico Cith's indie music scene a few years ago, the brother-sister duo Sotomayor have formulated their own kind of turbo-charged pop by setting catchy hooks to punchy beats and saturating them with Latin American flavour. Their third album, Orígenes, is a big and bold work of Latin electronic music that draws from styles such as reggaeton, baile funk and house, with each track clearly intended as a dance floor filler. Its lead single, ‘Quema’, is set to the chuck-chucka rhythm of cumbia, but the traditional percussion that opens the track quickly gives way to a bass-heavy electronic cumbia beat that bristles with fuzzy synths. The immaculately produced beats in Orígenes take unexpected twists and turns, and are often charged with a gritty edge that sets Sotomayor apart from their commercial contemporaries. But the vocals (Paulina Sotomayor) do seem to sit quite awkwardly on top of these tracks, at times sounding dry and limp in comparison to the slick production around them. But strong moments, including the snarling vocal hook in ‘Lo Que Tu Quieres de Mi’, make this album worth a listen for fans of the genre and those who want to hear Latin pop with some real bite.