Raised on the margins of Buenos Aires, the young Soema Montenegro was drawn to wilderness rather than the Argentinian metropolis, later rejecting the European formality of her conservatory studies for folklore and improvisation. Gifted with a powerful, soaring voice, she has subsequently won international honours as a poet, shaman and social activist. This fifth album is her most accomplished, the “radiant circle” of the title referring to both the sun and a round trip of South American music.
Key to its success is producer Leo Martinelli, a master of Latin folktronica, who provides discreet backing, augmenting birdsong with beats and flourishes of guitars and brass. Evocation of place is Montenegro’s thing. Caminante describes walking through an arid outback threatened by the despoliation of mining; San Pedro a brief moment of craziness, dancing with the devil during carnival; Llegó la Tarde a late-night liaison haunted by accordion. Elsewhere, on La Huesera, Montenegro visits Mexico to the accompaniment of massed guitars, and borrows a Colombian cumbia rhythm, all parping brass, for a remake of Punay, a vintage Argentine anthem. The closing Yo He Visto a la Luna is an impassioned hymn to the changing moon, a moment of nocturnal ecstasy, as shamanic as you like.
