Perlas & Conchas

The incantation, ‘unidos, existimos’ (united, we exist), that opens this beguiling album suggests a pagan ritual, a mediation mantra, or a political slogan; it is, though, a powerful feminist declaration, sweeping up all those other possibilities at once. The title of the track ‘Brillando’ (Glowing) captures the shimmering and glass-solid quality of the sound that encases the credo. Perhaps the Andes have something to do with it. Argentinian female trio Fémina hail from Patagonia, a land of cool blue lakes and beautiful mountains – plus hippy communes, indigenous Mapuche protests and a sense of being very far away from Buenos Aires and the wider world. Cut off from distractions, they have quietly honed a bravely original, blissed-out soul music built around precise harmonies and a mix of local folk and less obviously rooted hip-hop influences.

For their third album, Perlas & Conchas (Pearls & Shells, though concha is also slang for ‘vagina’ in Argentinian Spanish), producer British DJ and musician Quantic has accented the electronic and ambient. But there's an experimental inflection throughout the sequence that embraces elements of jazz, vintage psychedelia, even reggae and calypso. Myriad musical ideas are held together by the enigmatic choruses. If the sound is ethereal, the lyrics confront earth-bound issues: gender equality, race, the mass media. All that is commonplace and crass is challenged through art and feeling rather than soapbox literalness.