De Donde Eres Album

You can't pick your sorrows. Cordero knows this first-hand.
After an unfortunate string of family and friend crises, bandleader Ani
Cordero found herself physically and emotionally drained, and grasping
for fragments of hope and solace. Finding writing on her mother's nylon
string guitar in her native tongue to be far more immediate and
personal, the compositions that Ani wrote for De donde Eres are exclusively in Spanish.While Ani and husband Chris Verene (formerly of The Rock*A*Teens) are best known for their critically acclaimed, tension-laden independent rock, with De donde eres, the band has taken a side-route away from the anxious and angular sounds of En Este Momento or Lamb Lost in the City. De donde eres finds
Cordero further exploring the rhythmic intricacies of Latin music while
turning down the guitar amps for a much more quiet and inward set of
songs. Ani's ever-nimble guitar patterns are threaded around Latin
percussion, pulsing bass notes and bright horn lines as the band wrings
a both-sides-of-the-border mystery out of gentle melodies that pay
tribute to forebears such as Nick Drake, Belle and Sebastian, and Os Mutantes.Thematically,
the record runs the gamut of emotions. While many songs--such as the
ruminative "Guardasecretos"—find Cordero exploring the internal
experience, album starter "Quique" is an immediate call to the dance
floor, shot through with equal servings of melancholy and exuberant
hopefulness. "La Yegua" ("The Mare") is a powerful statement of women's
independence, staking out a place somewhere between "brave", "wild" and
"fierce", while "Ruleta Rusa" ("Russian Roulette") castigates the greed
of the profit-driven corporations and governments.Cordero's
music is clearly a product of its creative and cultural diaspora. An
indie rock band with Latin roots, Cordero is led by a woman of Puerto
Rican descent who calls Brooklyn her home but still finds a kinship
with many other places—Tucson, Atlanta, and other points on the map
where she has lived or performed. The album title translates as "where
are you from?" Indeed, "Where is she from?" has been the primary
question from audiences and press alike. Ten years on stage responding
to that same question has led the band to answer randomly, sometimes
teasingly naming places like Atlanta, which while partly truth, is
rarely exotic enough to satisfy the person asking.Ultimately, De donde eres stands
as a battle-scarred—yet uplifting--document of heartache and joy on a
scale both universal and intimately personal, displaying an independent
multicultural rock outfit at the top of its powers.(From Bloodshot Records)