Over three solo albums, Guatemala-born and Mexico City-based cellist and singer Mabe Fratti has honed the art of creating music that revels in an underlying unease. Since her 2020 debut Pies Sobre La Tierra, Fratti has undercut her soft falsetto and floating melodies with fragments of scraped bows on strings, shards of whispered electronics and thorny harmonies. Fratti’s sonic world is all tension and release, compelling in its yearning movement.
For her latest project, Titanic, Fratti has partnered with Mexico City multi-instrumentalist Hector Tosta. Their debut album, Vidrio, channels that same tension, but rather than operate in Fratti’s usual world of off-kilter folk, Tosta’s influence broadens their palette with jazz improvisation, driving drum grooves and atonal orchestration.
Their approach to genre is unbound. Anchoring each composition in the clarity of Fratti’s voice, which is always pushed to the fore, it veers from jazz on Hotel Elizabeth, featuring Jarrett Gilgore’s high-register, expressive saxophone lines, to Cielo Falso’s jaunty, strings-led chamber pop and Te Evite’s guitar-strumming polyrhythms. Each of those tracks plays with a joyous vitality, although some arrangements work less effectively. Palacio’s minimal ascending piano and vocal melodies grow monotonous, while Circulo Perfecto’s sparse horn harmonies leave Fratti exposed.
Other experiments arrive with anthemic certainty. Anónima’s thumping, reverb-laden drum groove and doubled cello line is gloriously punchy, providing an arena-sized backing for Fratti’s catchy refrain, while Balanza’s screeching saxophone and hammered piano chords are a euphoric free jazz freakout. Fratti’s singular vocals are capable of adhering to the wide range of Tosta’s soundscapes without compromising her ear for unusual orchestration, a skill that surprises as much as it delights.
Also out this month
Lisbon-based producer Nídia releases her third album, 95 Mindjeres (Príncipe), and continues her knack for layering skeletal batida beats over insistent melodies. These 11 subtle, artful tracks grab your attention despite their minimal, mid-tempo arrangements. Composer Dasom Baek samples traditional Korean flutes and unnerving electronics on her latest record, Mirror City (Métron Records). Baek examines and defamiliarises the texture of breath, and makes these ancient acoustic instruments feel as electronic and inhuman as her digital sounds. Brazilian singer Ana Frango Elétrico releases Me Chama De Gato Que Eu Sou Sua (Mr Bongo), an uplifting collection of disco, boogie and funk that finds its strengths in a rock-solid rhythm section, grooving endlessly.
