Our LOUD WOMEN EP of the Month comes from Austin art-pop band Alma Muñeca with their stunning debut, Deseo un Brillo.
Alma Muñeca is led by Panamanian immigrant Cocó Allegra and features drummer Wade Stephens, synthesist Matt Russell, and producer Ernesto Grey. The band fuses experimental synth textures with ethereal vocals, performing lyrics in Allegra’s native Spanish. Through their music and message, Alma Muñeca is committed to empowering and celebrating the Latin and queer communities.
Fueled by heartbreak, Deseo un Brillo explores the twists and turns of desire and love in on-and-off relationships, alongside the weight of familial heartbreak and disappointment. The EP was produced by Grey.
“How can I feel so passionate and loving about someone yet I also feel so much confusion, anger and sadness about them too? Keeping yourself hopeful in hopeless moments, freezing time with my lyrics and sharing it with the world, hoping someone out there can find comfort in them. I wrote this trying to find answers to questions, trying to heal and at the same time manifest self confidence.
I felt inspired by old salsa music that I would play on repeat during breakups, my favorite example is ‘Lloraras’ by Oscar D’León–there’s something comforting about nostalgic music I’ve been listening to forever. At the same time, I was motivated by songs like “oh my love” by FKA Twigs and “I Want You to Love Me” by Fiona Apple.”
Cocó Allegra
Grey reflects on his path of being a producer which led up to the stellar release of Deseo un Brillo.
“It feels like I’ve been trying to produce music like this my whole life. While growing up in Mexico, I was mostly exposed to 2000s Latin pop music, which was primarily led by rock instrumentation. It wasn’t until I moved to Austin in my teens that I started to endlessly dig for more left field kinds of music.
I gravitated a lot towards electronic producers such as Trent Reznor, Thom Yorke, Jon Hopkins, etc. With Alma Muñeca, I am able to explore an introspective and ethereal language that feels so familiar to me, but it also pushes me to try things that are more out of my comfort zone. At the end of the day, I just want to make pop music that you can chew on.”
Ernesto Grey
Alongside releasing the EP, Alma Muñeca shares brat-eque track ‘Melancolía’.
“It’s about the melancholy and nostalgia you feel as you grow up and realize your parents and family are human too and make lots of mistakes. Realizing someone you idolized is actually very flawed and wishing you could go back to thinking of them like a superhero and idealized. That moment when you can’t ever go back to that naïve child-like love and wishing your view of them never got tainted. Grieving that blind trust you have when you’re a child. It’s the one song of the EP that is not about romantic relationships yet it could be interpreted as that too.”
Cocó Allegra
Stream Deseo un Brillo here.
Celebrate the release with Alma Muñeca live in Austin on October 25 at Elysium.
Find Alma Muñeca on Instagram
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